#maybe march will be in march this year but I cannot make any promises

[anna-scribbles]

thirteen update 💕💍🍽️🩸

chapter 5: february

summary:

“These things do not concern you,” Papa told him flatly. “I will run my household however I see fit. Your concerns are with your schoolwork and your modeling.” Blood pumped heavy and fast through Adrien’s heart. That wasn’t—fair. Concern was about all he was capable of these days. “And what about Maman?” Adrien asked, exhausted, reckless. “May I be concerned about Maman?” Something shifted on Papa’s face, all his emotions smothered in stone.

excerpt:

The best day of Adrien’s life was eight months and six days ago. No contest.

It was a crisp kind of cold that day, the Paris sky blooming a bright and brilliant blue overhead. The sun pierced right through the brisk February air, a shock of spearmint and adrenaline in his veins. He couldn’t stop widening his eyes, couldn’t stop smiling. The city was so alive. Strains of love songs poured out of open cafe doors and onto tourists, their hands full of red roses and lovers’ hands. The cobblestones sang with the patters of paired footsteps all down the street. It was the city of love always, but today especially. Today Adrien was made of the stuff, just bursting with it.

And, like every other day in the running for the best of his life, Marinette was there.

“You’d better not pull anything,” she warned, tightening her grip on his hand as they passed by a tourist couple looking very… engrossed with each other in the middle of the street. “And—and if you do, you have to tell me. Right now.”

Marinette’s brow was lightly furrowed, the bridge of her nose just barely scrunched up. Her hair was pulled half-back with a pink ribbon, matching the shade of the skirt she wore beneath her velvety black peacoat. Her Mary Janes clipped anxiously down the road and Adrien’s heart danced and swelled and spun in his chest.

“Pull something? Me?” Adrien stepped aside so their arms were outstretched, and then pulled at Marinette’s fingers, sending her tumbling back into his arms. She looked up at him, trying to frown, smiling. He grinned. “I would never.”

“I’m serious.��� Marinette untangled herself from his arms and interlocked her fingers again with his. Her hand was the warmest thing in the world. She looked at him sternly, wagging a finger in his face. “I need to know so I can—prepare. Especially if it’s something crazy. No funny business.”

“Marinette,” he moaned, draping a wounded hand over his heart. One corner of his mouth quirked into a smile, eyes darting to meet her gaze. “You think I’m funny?”

She groaned. “I think you‘re—I think you’re ridiculous, and sappy, and romantic, and I think it’s Valentine’s Day in Paris”—this part she shouted, which drew a few stares—“and I think you’re about to take me on an insanely adorable date, and I think Alya took me to get my nails done last week—!”

“You’re so thoughtful,” Adrien remarked, swinging their hands back and forth. “And observant. What a beautiful mind you have, my lady.”

“You have to tell me,” Marinette insisted. She stopped them on the street and frowned at him, pink flushing the apples of her cheeks. “Is it—are you—?”

“Hm?” Adrien murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Marinette’s cheeks went ablaze.

“I—you—you know what I mean!” she spluttered. “Are you gonna…you know!”

He tilted his head to the side. “Am I…?”

read on ao3

[calummss]

having a baby with marshall mathers/eminem

masterlist

headcanon includes timeline, pregnancy and after birth bullet points

for the purpose of this headcanon the baby is called romy

timeline

i imagine marshall to also be young in this universe — 24 years old, can barely keep a job down. you work multiple jobs to pull through college. becoming parents was the last thing on your mind

finding out you were pregnant was a shock; as much sex as you two had, you always made sure to be protected, so when you suddenly realised your period was late and took a pregnancy test your heart literally dopped

you literally dropped everything, crammed the test into your pockets and marched through the frosty detroit morning to the restaurant marshall was currently employed under and asked to see him

marshall assured you that whatever conclusion you came to would be right and would support you no matter what

that definitely was the biggest weight lifted off your shoulders—the reassurance that marshall would stick with you if you decided to keep the baby

it was definitely a tough decision and took you almost two weeks to completely make up your mind

you ofc decided to keep the baby (otherwise whats the point of this headcanon?)

marshall promised to that he would be by your side and support his new family

literally 5 seconds after you told him you wanted to keep the baby, he pulled out a ring and said ‘thank god cause this is just a good excuse to marry you’

and we all know that having a child in marriage is far easier (but marshall also loved you and would’ve married you anyways)

baby mathers would be born on december 25th aka christmas because it would just be the best christmas present

what it would include (during pregnancy)

i feel like marshall is the type to be extra careful with you; offering his arm or hand when walking down steps, not letting you carry heavy things, making sure you cannot be hurt in whatever it is you are doing. and if any of his friends did something harmless but he saw it as a danger, he would be so pissed off

i also think it’s very possible for him to call your unborn baby ‘baby mathers; little slim’ something sweet that builds a connection

i imagine marshall to be very helpful with things around the house or other things that need to be done but he’ll definitely be pissed a few times because even though he understands that you’re supposed to relax and take care of yourself and the baby, he feels an extra burden so maybe he snaps once or twice? he immediately apologises but it’s a lot for a man who constantly takes new jobs and tries to be the best husband and father

i 100% see him talking to your stomach. he’ll talk to his daughter, catch her up on life and what he’s doing

‘hello baby, it’s daddy. mommy only has a few months left before we finally get to meet you. don’t take too long though because mama is startin’ to get very tired. the doctor said that you’re due for christmas. now daddy isn’t one who belives in destiny but you my little lady are goin’ to be our little christmas present. daddy has no money right now and that makes him feel like a bum but he’ll work extra hard to give you everything you ever want… if you ever want a unicorn you just come and let daddy know, okay?’

i have this gut feeling that he tries to hide his feelings. during this time marshall is so overwhelmed. he’s happy to welcome his daughter, stressed because he doesn’t know how long his job will last and how much money he can put down. you’ll find him crying in the kitchen one night after you wake up and couldn’t feel him beside you. you let him cry alone knowing he needed alone time

marshall will try to honour your cravings and buy you anything you want. if he’s short on money or can’t leave he will ask deshaun to swing by (and shaun cannot say no to you)

the d12 group will 100% pledge allegiance to baby mathers!! like you just now that as soon as you hang out together they’re gonna talk about how baby mathers will be protected at all costs, no one’s gonna f*ck with her etc. it’s like they’re her bodyguards ready to get at anyone’s neck who would even dare take a wrong glance at her

marshall’s arm would drape over your stomach when you two sleep at night. his arm would go from lying on a flat surface to a montain but he didn’t seem to mind. it was a habit he picked up

when you get closer to your due date this man would be stressed!! i mean stressed! any call out (shit, fuck, no, yes, what, literally the list goes on and on) would have a panting marshall by your side in less than a few seconds. he’s just waiting for your water to break. he’s extra careful during the last weeks because at this point you’re also stressed and just want the pregnancy to be done with

so when your water does finally break you know the bag is packed and in less than 5 minutes you’re on your way to the hospital, i just know it

extra: during labour he’s so supportive: holding your hand, motivating you, but deep inside he’s so much more stressed than you are lmao

what it would include (after birth)

he would not be able to let go of her. any time you turn away and look back he’d have little romy in his arms, literally hearts in his eyes as he stares down at her

you both decided on breastfeeding but you bought formula so that he could feed her and seeing him holding her in his arms feeding her the bottle makes your heart skip a beat. it allowed him to be as close to her as you were during feedings

he is absolutely obsessed with her hands. he loves how her baby hand wraps around his finger, and when she’s older the feeling of her small hand in his as it engulfs hers

plus he loves carrying her. he just loves the closeness. he will carry his baby girl anywhere and everywhere

marshall would be so proud to show her off to his friends. and if she wasn’t with him he’d find any reason to talk about her. they could be talking about the best ways to make a drink and he’d just start rambling about baby romy. some of them playfully roll their eyes but understand where he’s coming from

he’ll definitely be overwhelmed the first months when she wakes up crying in the middle of the night because it just adds to the stress but will never openly complain about it. he toughens up and goes to her room to calm her down

he’d have an addiction with baby clothes and browsing around stores literally fighting himself wether or not he actually needs to buy certain things

he’ll only address his daughter as ‘baby’ to the point you tell him to start calling her romy because she’d probably start to believe that baby was her name

marshall would definitely beat himself up trying to live up to his own expectations as a father. having no father to look up to, he tries to do his daughter justice but feels like he fails her in certain moments. those moments similar to those during pregnancy, he would sit alone in the kitchen just thinking about how to make things right

he’d insist on bringing baby romy EVERYWHERE. this man cannot stay away from her for longer than a few hours. she’s his serotonin, his lifeline

he’d have a piggy bank for her where he would put a 1/4 of his pay into so that she would be able to buy things she wanted

romy (and you) would serve as his main inspiration for music and also motivate him to work hard to make it out of greensbriar

after his rise to fame, despite his busy work schedule, marshall tries to spend as much time with her as possible

he tries to do few shows so that he’s not away from her and you for too long

with the rise of fame, his income flooded in. marshall buys her almost everything she wants. not stuff she doesn’t need but a lot. he’s not spoiling her in the way you think. he just wants her to have everything he didn’t have and make her happy. and if buying her a fourth barbie doll makes his baby smile then he will buy her that fourth barbie doll!!

though romy serves as his drive and motivation and inspiration for many of his songs, he tries to keep her out of the spotlight and out of hollywood. as soon as he’s done recording, attending award shows etc. he’s back on a plane to detroit to see his baby the only lady he adores (see what i did? ofc you did.)

he’d just be such an amazing father which you remind him of every day. he still doubts a lot but he’s starting to know his impact on her life

also romy comes before anything else!! daddy-daughter-day at kindergarten? sorry dre but this recording will be postponed. tour dates fall onto romy’s first day of school? yeah that tour night ain’t happening—i think you get what i’m trying to say. nothing will stop him from experiencing milestones and important memories in her life and in his life as a father (learned what not to do from his father)

the older she gets the more sentimental he becomes. seeing his baby grow up makes him sad and proud at the same time. she’s not only his whole world but she is the reason for him breathing and continuing in life even if it seems that life doesn’t want him to win

you made romy a cd with all the songs dedicated or about her from her daddy so when she’s in her room playing with dolls whatever, his songs are on repeat and the sight of it could make him fall to his knees (metaphorically speaking)

when romy turns 4 and older she’ll randomly make him watch her self choreographed dances or sing along to his songs and you best believe he is smiling and clapping after EVERY performance his baby girl gives!! he’s her number 1 fan. he even encourages her to show his friends and you already now they’re hyping up their little lady

and when romy is 15, oh she’s gonna rap him some of his songs and he’ll have the same reaction. maybe even share the stage for one song? who knows?

marshall is known for his rap and not for his cooking for a reason but he has few recipes like pancakes or foods he grew up with that are staples and enjoys cooking them for romy (she has her dad’s tastebuds 100%)

when romy has nightmares he’ll let her sleep in your bed for as long as she needs to feel safe again (deep down he never wants his baby to leave)

[zuzsenpai]

This is another personal post with TW mental illness. I'm sorry there have been so many recently. I really have nowhere else to put these things. Feel free to ignore.

I don't think my depression has ever been this bad before, in the almost 13 years I've had it. For maybe the past two months it's been steadily growing to a point of intensity that I can't ignore. The absolutely awful feelings won't go away. I can't stop thinking about how miserable I feel.

I can barely take care of myself. I eat takeout every day. There's garbage everywhere at my house. I can't get shit done at work and at some point people are going to notice. I have multiple really REALLY urgent doctor's appointments/calls I HAVE to make (one of which is to my psychiatrist who apparently I'm blocked from messaging on the healthcare app), yet I can't seem to pick up the phone. I am mentally incapable somehow. There's a wall there.

I have been told to exercise and meditate and I physically and mentally cannot. Again, there is a wall.

I have a video game I wanted to play, I try to play it, and I feel completely unattached to it (even though I have loved it in the past). I joined a really exclusive roleplay community for that game and proceeded to be too overwhelmed to make the character application and now the mods are asking me what I want to do. I haven't written fanfiction in two months because of severe burnout, and I miss it so desperately that it's making me realize I might have been using it as a bandaid/distraction. But my brain is so fried that I feel too overwhelmed to write again. People are leaving me nice comments on my fics and I can't even bring myself to read them let alone respond to them. My memory is so bad that I can't remember a lot of what happens in any of my fave series' and I feel like creating good fan content for those things is impossible at this point.

I'm ignoring online friends in my favorite server. I promised multiple IRL friends I would watch animes they like and I am feeling guilty that I mentally cannot do that. I'm dreading the two anime cons I have coming up in March because I don't think I'm going to feel comfortable in my cosplay this year. I have a close friend (who is also my coworker) who keeps trying to get me to do things with her and her husband and I keep turning them down because I'm worried I'll get overwhelmed by social anxiety and general awkwardness. Just the thought of having awkward social interactions is terrifying me and pushing me down harder than it ever has.

I had a boyfriend between October 2022 and December 2023, but I felt like it was a huge chore every time I had to see him and I developed zero feelings for him. I felt repulsed by the thought of us being romantic. We ghosted each other in December and now I feel like shit about it because he may have been the only chance I'll ever have at a relationship... but I also am in such a bad state that it's probably good things are over. Why don't I feel relieved?

I'm having physical tics in my abdomen and jaw that are getting worse and worse to the point of pain and people noticing. I can't talk to literally anyone without sounding upset, negative, angry. I had my best friends from out of state over a few weekends ago and I was so sick the whole time, I felt like I was letting them down. I've been repeating awkward interactions with friends and coworkers over and over in my head to the point where I think about it at night.

I haven't put my Christmas decorations away because I fucking CAN'T.

This week has been particularly bad. Yesterday I was working from home because of snow. When the snow stopped I rushed to my parents' house because I needed to be somewhere with people I know. But I was so negative in how I spoke with them, and it's making me feel even worse. I used to be really talkative and intelligent when having conversations with my family, but depression has taken that away from me pretty badly over the years, to the point where I can barely talk without thinking about how absolutely dreadful I am at conversation.

But today might be the worst of it (unrelated to Valentine's Day, though it certainly isn't helping). It pained me emotionally and physically to get out of bed, and I wanted to take a mental health day. Literally fell back asleep for an hour before I had to get up and DREAMT about taking a mental health day. But being alone at home is actually so much worse than being at work where there are at least people I am comfortable with. So I went in. I have been absolutely bombarded with depressed feelings all day though. I get up to walk down the hall to the bathroom and somehow that feels worse than sitting and staring at my computer without accomplishing anything. I'm sitting here crying at work, completely destroying the four months of tally marks I had for 'days without crying at work'. I didn't break my record, sadly.

I have a therapist. I have an appointment with her today actually. Maybe I'll just read all of this to her. I don't know where it's going to lead or what she's going to tell me to do, but all I want is to walk down the hall to the bathroom and have at least average, neutral emotions instead of carrying a chest full of raging depression. I want to be able to say something happy to someone so that they don't dump me as a friend for being toxically negative. I want to live, and I have things to live for. But damn if this depression isn't making it extremely difficult to enjoy those things.

[gunmetalgrey]

H E A D C A N O N | THE DEATH OF SEBASTIAN MORAN

TW FOR DRUGS, ADDICTION, OVERDOSE AND DEATH.

Note: over the last ten years, @epiitaphs and I have worked together to create a shared Moran Family. I am always open to writing with other Morans and would love to do more in general, however if you do not write a Moran then THIS is the events in Alex’s canon. If you would like to understand more or plot familial ties with Alex, please know my IM’s are always open. And to @epiitaphs, Alex the muse will always hate you for making Alex the cat.

Sebastian Nikolai James Moran was the eldest of the Moran children, and Alex’s hero. They always struggled with a weird and uneasy relationship, given the age gap. He and Severin liked to pretend Alex was invisible for several years while she was small until as an unruly and hellish teenager she had a sense of rebellion that could outshine his own. They were alike in some ways, and vastly different in others. Over the years there were phases of talking and not talking, which became worse in the early 200’s when Sebastian officially cut off the entire family.

Struggling with undiagnosed PTSD and a dishonourable discharge that his father had managed to get him rather than the prison time he had been due to serve, Sebastian turned to opiates. And murder as a means of earning enough to keep up the habit. Alex didn’t know of this until much later, she herself was injured in the line of duty in November 2010. Despite all the friction between them, his last known number was her emergency contact and he had been the one to nurse her back to functional health. It was during this time she learned of what she had missed in his life, and when forced to take her own discharge on medical grounds, asked to help him in his new found criminal career as well as helping him stay sane and sober. Seb was clean since November 2009, and planned to stay that way.

It wasn’t an easy fit, in February 2014 Alex faked her death and forced an unknowing Sebastian to identify the body. This is the last time she existed as Alex Moran, and any other relatives believe she is buried somewhere near Bristol. She showed up in Sebs flat two weeks later with little to no explanation. And worse still, they fought physically in March 2014 when Alex tried to leave to work alone.

Sebastian is the one who had a relationship with Moriarty (known as M) in whatever twisted way that could be understood. Alex didn’t know much about their deal until March 2015- when Sebastian made a further bargain with M. For nearly 18 months, Alex had been captured and tortured by Georgian terrorists and when learning she was alive, Sebastian made a deal for her freedom. She too would work for Moriarty to earn back her ransom.

Alex did not agree to this and wasn’t aware of the promises made till much later (when it was far too late). She had always resented and hated M, and generally does not deal with him at all. Sebastian in the middle man- or he was. In September 2017, Alex was finally pushed too far.

She was asked to kill a family of 5, including three children. Up to this point, Alex had been able to live with herself by counting the lives she had ended as for the better, usually criminals or those wishing to bring harm. But she has always had a rule about children. And she told Moriarty that this was too far. He could end their deal, he could take her life, but she would not hurt a kid. Ever.

Alex believed her defiance had been heard and maybe even respected. She was sent on another job out of town for a week, and out of contact. She returned to London to find news of the family in Sweden found massacred in their home, and knowing it had to be Sebastian who had committed the horrible act, she went to his flat to confront him.

Instead she found him dead of an apparent overdose.

To her dying day, she doesn’t believe he would have relapsed. She is left with his cat (Also called Alex, as a sick in joke) and a mountain of grief she cannot begin to process. As well as the same employer she believes is responsible for his death. Sebastian’s body was found in his apartment, his indoor cat rehomed to a happy family and the tabloids having a small field day over the third dead child of the MP Thomas Moran. It took a week for Alex (the human) to trap Alex (the stray black cat) in order to make sure she wasn’t a nuisance for other neighbour and to have the last connection to her brother. The apartment was sold, the media moved on and everyone else forgot about the junkie son of a House of Lords politician.

Except for Alex, who finally understood there was no safety while M was alive.

[gu6chan]

Hello, I saw your rant on Drakenier lore and honestly I agree. While I do enjoy the occasional "oh those line up really well" lore, I choose to stay away from the fandom because they love to make it connections where there doesn't seem to be any. I don't enjoy a lot of those theory posts because they are way off Taro's vibes, intentions, and style.

Also I'm sorry you experienced such bad things in the community. Thank you for the translations, nonetheless, and I will cherish what memory I have of them should they be pulled completely off the net.

Okay, so I got this ask on March 16th of this year not long after I kickstarted this little blog and I VOWED not to come back to it till I actually was able to privatise my works and!!! The day's finally come!!! Accord's Library is shut down!!!!! I honestly cannot believe it's happened, I wish I could put into proper words how emotional the news was for me 😭 I was honestly scared they'd be stuck up there for years and I'd have to live with that paranoia and weight in my chest forever, but just??? Waking up? Knowing I'm finally free is such an unbelievable feeling, I honestly don't know how to put it into words. I've never woken up with a smile on my face so many days in a row before!!! I didn't even have an idea that it was weighing on me that heavily. I can go dark, shut down and take some time for myself, and who knows? I might even be able to get into translation again by 2025!!! I'm so excited aaaaaaa!!! I've been trying AGES to get my works back under my belt for even a moment of peace, i was beginning to think it might never be possible :,) Honestly, I get a lot of people might not be thrilled at the whole "I'm HAPPY your favourite fan archive got shut down so I can do my silly little hobby again :)))))" thing but honestly, I've realised I don't do it for them so much as for myself and the other silly little perverts who just want to see what's out there and see every iteration of their blorbo and whatever "Oh, that's what x was about" The Drakenier fanbase is small, so I might not exactly have the same small circle to share these things to like I used to and that can be demotivating at times, but again!! Just from what I've done here, my whole method of "breathe wrong about drakenier in an even slightly questionable way and i block you" has been working better than I thought it would, so it might be controversial, but I think I'll start applying that to my translation blog as well!!! For the longest time, I know I had even mentioned it in the post I assume this is referring to, I've been kinda "split" between "Oh my god this fanbase is filled with IDIOTS, stop talking about """the lore""" and stop to smell the characters, I wish I never shared ANYTHING with you stupid motherfuckers >:(" and "But I love translation, I don't want to give that up just because a few people made stupid assertions using the material i tled for them" And then the splendid realisation hit: It SHOULDN'T be for them!!! I'm doing this for me, ofc I always thought I had been based off the pretense "I enjoy doing it" but I never took it into account to apply that to my boundaries as well. So I think in the future, if anyone says or posts anything I don't want to see or just find annoying, it doesn't matter whether it's my personal blog or translation blog or what, I'll just block them!!! If their lore is really that precious to them then they can just make an alt and snoop lol Anyways, getting to the point I wanted to make is that it makes me so happy I can reply to this after so long, thank you so much for your kind words!!!! It actually makes my whole day that you actually enjoy my translations, even if they were pretty shoddy at times 😭 all that said, I don't know if you're still around to see this, anon (Maybe you're deactivated, maybe you're even one of the 200+ people I've blocked... its nothing personal if so, promise!!!) but rest assured these translations will not be going anywhere in the long-run 🫡 I'll just keep them to myself for a bit and stay on the down-low before coming back!! Hopefully with a new project to start~ Even knowing AL's demise was inevitable, I thought it would be a matter of years, not months since I came to that resolution it'd be the only way I could safely come back to translation - I thought by then, I'd probably be so budy with personal affairs I wouldn't even have the passion for translation like I do now!! So I'm really excited at the thought of getting back into translation again, I really never thought it would be possible!!!

[missspringthyme]

March 19th, 2024

Today I woke up with just enough time to go and grab a protein drink and a pastry before catching my bus to Maastricht. Despite the fact that I seem to be continually at the grocery store, I currently have no food besides a few dry ingredients that cannot be made into a full meal. Or what do I know, maybe plain cous cous would be ideal.

The whole vibe of waking up in a rush and chugging a chocolate protein shake on a bus feels very last semester coded and I paid the price for it. By the time I got off at my stop I was feeling very sick and unhappy. I wish I didn't get car(bus?)sick so easily.

The walk was nice though, very classic early spring day. Not quite enough to completely lose the jacket, but I left it unzipped. There's lots of flowers blooming, but my favorite are the fruit trees. There's a huge one right on my walk to the uni that has flooded the entire street with pink petals, if I could I would've stopped and sat there for awhile. I should be a little more spoiled growing up with cherry blossom season coinciding with my birthday every year in Japan, but I love fruit tree blossoms no matter where I am. I always secretly feel like they're a gift for me, a marker of better times ahead. Genuinely, I think Spring is the best time to be born.

At the uni, I found my supervisor's office empty so I decided to sit in the break room and wait to be retrieved. A part of me was nervous because my tablet seems to be stuck in British time for only some things (?) One of which includes the times it reports my notifications for calender events. I was a bit paranoid that what I had assumed that the time it was telling me was correct (1 hour earlier than the normal time) and that I had incorrectly assumed it was reporting incorrectly. I fully considered going upstairs to the eeg lab to check if they were in there, but I was pretty sure we didn't have a participant today.

In the break room I checked my email for any "hey where are yous" or "we're canceling today" but I couldn't find any. Instead, I found an email from the PhD student leading the conference in Italy this summer sending me what I needed to apply for a volunteer position. I worked on that for a little bit, and I listened as some other master's students came in and started talking to eachother. Something that makes me feel kinda sad is how I haven't really made any friends in my master's. A combination of living in Aachen, not taking the electives, and sacrificing social invitations because I was overwhelmed with my workload has led to only a handful of school aquantinces. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with the friends I've made but I just don't feel that connected with my university. That really sucks.

I did see German Sri Lankan and got to tell her I had my phone stolen in case she had tried to text. I also finally got the information about her gynecologist that I had promised to give to German American. She offered to have us go back together, which would have been perfect except for the fact that after an hour and a half of waiting I finally found the email of my supervisor canceling our meeting. I fucking hate the outlook inbox. I don't know how you can design something that does literally the opposite of everything you'd want it to do. I'm 100% a Gmail girlie. So, I sent German Sri Lankan a message on snapchat (the only messaging I can currently use) telling her I would be leaving early and got out of there.

I was now tired, hungry, uncomfortable, and annoyed. As I walked back I grabbed my pastry to eat and discovered I had made a horrible mistake. I thought I had grabbed spinach and feta, instead it was filled with some sort of bland, creamy cheese. It did not taste good at all. How does the Aldi have a better bakery selection than the Rewe?? Some things I will never understand. I also haven't mentioned that my outfit just wasn't hitting today, so I really just didn't feel cute.

When I got back to the apartment, I collapsed face first onto the sofa. I took a little half awake nap to banish the last remains of nausea from my system, and got up just in time to catch German American and authentic australian coming back in from enjoying the lovely day outside. We all had a really nice conversation that eventually turned to a discussion around cameras. That was when German American started showing me some photos she had taken with her film camera on a trip to Singapore and I made an insane discovery.

In one of her photos, I saw someone I recognized. A boy that I had gone to daycare with in Singapore, who I had last visited in 2017. Come to find out, the town where his family lives is the town where German American was born and lived in until she was 8. They were neighbors and are still close family friends. After freaking out for a bit, we called his mom and shared the discovery. The call lasted for a long, long time. She remembered my birthday and some things that even I had forgotten about, which was a pleasent suprise. Something I found interesting was that his mom brought up how unhappy I had been around my mom the last time we visited them, and how much happier I seemed now. Which, yes, but crazy that it was noticeable enough for her to say it to me. I kept trying to figure out how she felt about my mom, it was a little hard to pin down. We ended up calling my mom too and they talked for a little bit, but still, crazy coincidence.

After all of that, I finally got to go grocery shopping. For dinner I made myself a giant pot of udon which was exactly what I needed. Then came the best part of today, authentic australian asked for a haircut.

We set him up in the hallway, and I grabbed my hair clips and hair scissors to compliment the thinning sheers authentic australian had bought for the occasion. He just wanted it to be thinned, but he said he wouldn't mind the ends being trimmed as well, so we got to work. Turns out the random trims I've given myself over the years has meant I've absorbed a lot more hair cutting techniques than I've realized. Not that it's super difficult to mess up on someone who has truly an insane amount of wavy hair.

German-american worked on one side and I the other, eventually stopping when we reached the top to make sure it stayed even. I even ended up cutting him little curtain bangs which was nerve wracking to do. After all our meticulous sectioning he still wanted more volume taken off so we just kinda hacked away at the back with thinning scissors. Finally, we had removed an acceptable amount of hair. His ends had been really dry though, so I asked him if he would let me put a conditioner in it too. We kept telling him this is what he was missing by not having any sisters.

This is where the rest of the night's insanity began.

I spritzed his hair to make it damp enough, but it was still so thick that it was taking awhile. I gave german-american the spray bottle so that she could take over on the side I wasn't standing on. This quickly snowballed into authentic australian recieving an impromptu shower. As I took photos of him holding the ball of hair we had removed from his head, she kept spraying him directly in the face. He just kept saying he couldn't be mad at her because she had been so nice to him this week (waiting at the hospital with him for 5 hours, making the quiche, cutting his hair). She took that as a go ahead to absolutely drench him.

Eventually this became her chasing him and trying to catch him off guard, but it was genuinely the funniest thing I had seen all week. Peak sibling behaviour. I also absolutely helped her do it all as well. At one point she was pushing against his door and trying to spray inside while he kept trying to shut it. A moment that is burned into my brain is when he stuck his hand out in a flat, defensive palm and she responded with a single squirt to the middle of his hand. The entire time jazz (see above) was playing in the background. Incredible night.

Authentic australian did eventually take and hide the spray bottle, but I know where it is. This is not over. Now they're both a little jumpy around each other.

[yourmoonmomma]

*not a reading* Maple may I please ask for your advice? I’ve typed this out so many times and the app keeps crashing on me (what’s going on universe?)

How soon is too soon to get into a relationship? I met a guy at the beginning of the year, we would see each other here and there but it wasn’t until late march that we started talking and after a few days/week (early april) of talking we went on a date. According to him we’ve been boyfriend and girlfriend since after the first date, I didn’t know and was waiting for him to make it official even on our third date 😂. Of course, I’m thrilled, he’s so sweet and caring. He always takes me out and plans things based on what he remembers me telling him I liked etc.

But there’s a lingering thought that we’ve rushed and we’ll lose that spark.. I really like him Maple, I guess that’s why part of me is scared to get close to him because I have a feeling we won’t last long and I know for sure it’ll be a difficult heartbreak. According to his friends he’s the type to look for long term commitment, which I’m not opposed to. He’s the type to make decisions with 100% confidence and doesn’t doubt his judgement but I can’t help but feel scared :( No one has cared for me this much, I really don’t deserve him and constantly tell him to feel free to look for someone else, to which he’s adamant that he’s happy with me.

I’m also moving out of the city, not too far, but far enough that I won’t be able to see him weekly. I want nothing more than to stay with him but I’m so so scared that it’s making me insecure.

I should also mention, he’s asked me to meet his friends and go on holiday (just us two) we were going to meet a friend last week but plans changed and i’m meeting them in the summer. I’m super nervous, like, not because of the speed of the timeline but instead I’m worried he’ll get bored of me/realise that I’m not what he wants in a partner or his friends won’t like me. sorry if this was long, just needed to get my thoughts out.

Hi love, of course you can! I'm sorry to hear the app kept crashing omg, that is one of the most frustrating things when you're trying to send a longer message!

I really do think it varies from person to person. Jayson and I met in August (2019), and started dating that October, after only a week or two of "courting", if you will. But I also told him we weren't to post about it or make it a big deal for the first few months, as like a "trial run" that way it isn't like... embarrassing or something if it doesn't last. I think we probably ended up waiting close to half a year before I made any social media posts about him!

He sounds like a very sweet person!! You remind me a lot of myself, from a few years ago, and I know how scary those feelings can be. Especially if you feel almost... unworthy, perhaps, of what he has to offer you. But you aren't, and you do deserve love, regardless of how long it lasts. It can be a really scary concept, to think of letting yourself open up fully and love and be loved, without the promise of it lasting forever. But we never get that promise. And you cannot hold yourself back from experiencing these wonderful feelings because of that.

With that, it is also okay to take things slow! You can talk to him about these fears and concerns you have, maybe he's worried you'll also lose interest in him. Talking about it, and figuring out a path that works best for the both of you, will help a lot <33

Anyway, I just want to say you DO deserve him. And you deserve to be loved. I promise <3

[thedragonagelesbian]

Addendum: I'm procrastinating and desperately craving DAO rn so here's a follow-up for my other self-destructive elf boy, Luc Surana

"What kind of a mage cannot heal himself?” // “A very sorry excuse for one-- the name’s Luc.”

“Such stunning hospitality you have here.”

“I don’t— I’m not— You fools see any bit of spirit magic and call it demon summoning.”

“Fuck your mercy!” And if he hadn’t ever really left the Circle, he had no protection left in the world but this: his rage, layered thick over his fear, goading and spiteful to the end because then maybe he could say that he was choosing this. Asking for it. “Fuck your Maker, fuck your Crown, fuck you, you shriveled old cunt, fuck—”

“Maker,” the word came out slurred, sobbed, an infidel’s prayer, “if you’re a demon, you’re a damn good one.” // “This is real, love.” // “That’s what a demon would say… but I don’t care anymore. Please, please just get me out of here.”

“It’s weird to think… It’s weird to think. About any of it. About having a future.”

“You’re the one who can summon demons, you might pop one out right now and give it my gifts just to torment me.” // “You know what? Now that I think about it, I do owe my dear friend Ire a birthday present.”

“Don’t worry, I know they only give etiquette lessons to real royalty.”

“Oh, let us consider the many alternatives at my disposal.” Luc barely spared the tower a glance before marching down the hill, deploying his most sarcastic voice to irritating effect. “Either I go back to the Circle and beg for Irving’s mercy, or I go back to Redcliffe to enjoy my short and disastrous career as Alistair fucking Theirin’s scapegoat, or I live my short and disastrous life as an apostate-- until, of course, the templars find me and, you guessed it, bring me back to the Circle to beg for Irving’s mercy.”

“Share, yeah, sharing would be… nice,” the word came out a pained, slow hissed. “One, um, super itty bitty problem. I’ve… never drunk before.”

“No, I’m trying this novel thing called giving a shit about the world. Makes being responsible for saving it feel less like being trapped.”

Luc cried, “We want this! We both want this, I want this.” What a stupid word, what a stupid feeling, a yearning so severe his heart was clawing up through his sternum to rend his chest asunder and drag Alistair inside. But it was more than that, more than him, the entire premise—promise—of having a life worth living after the Blight was running out between his fingers like water, and the harder he tried to hold onto it, the deeper his nails dug into his palms, the worse it hurt and bled. “I’ve never wanted anything in my whole life more than I want this, to live here, away from the Circle, the Chantry, the darkspawn, to be safe with you. So take it back, take it all back! Say you’re joking, and I’ll pretend this never happened, and we can just go back to the way things were before.”

“And here I thought the perpetual wet raccoon look was part of my charm.”

Mouth twisting, the elf gave his hands a few experimental shakes, then looked at the burn the rage demon had left along his calf. He bent down to pick at the charred hem of his robe before announcing, “Oh, I bet this looks sick. Does it look sick?”

“Can you— can you fucking stop?!” he snapped. “All this blah blah angry argh mad at the mortal world shit, it’s so ten years ago.”

15 Lines of Dialogue

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!

tytytyty @bladesmitten for the tag!! I'll tag @ghostwise @isayashai & @hexblooddruid but no pressure

Doing this--of course--for Cyrus Hawke, with an assorted selection across his various iterations

"I'm sorry."

"That love is... It's everything. It's all of me."

“What am I supposed to make of that, of all the stories you tell about me, of the damned nickname, other than that I am supposed to be the world’s savior?”

“I chose to be by your side. I’d choose it again, in this lifetime or in any other, even if it kills me.”

“It’s usually best to just let him get it out of his system, and then do the reckless thing anyway.” // “You’re why I already have so many damn grey hairs.” // “I like your grey hairs.”

“I am what I’ve always been: a sword for someone else to wield. All that’s changed is that now it’s too broken to be worth holding.”

"Sometimes, peace needs to be forced."

"I would worship you-- all of you."

“Who knew a healer’s orders could sound so sexy?”

"It’s not… real. My body, it doesn’t feel like it’s mine. It’s just… something to give away, to make up for— for the rest of it. What’s in my head. It hurts, but I like being able to use it to help you all. To keep you all safe, to keep you fed and strong."

“Brooding? Is that what I’m doing? Am I brooding?”

"Have I earned some sort of prize for being your worst patient ever?" // "Oh, so you think I should reward you for your bad behavior?" // "Or you could incentivize very good behavior."

"I swore on my blade, my shield, my body, my life, that I would be of service to anyone who asked anything of me, dutiful down to the last drop of my blood, and I was so damned good at it… But no matter how much of myself I gave, no matter how much others took from me, it was never. Ever. Enough."

"That's what the oath is. Why I swore it, why I've kept it, it's not just important, it's everything, it's... me."

"I'm yours."

[waitingformyfavoritesongs]

2 March 2023 Thursday 9:44 am pdt

incubus wants me to believe that Jaycee dugard wasn’t ready raped. Know what incubus? You want me to believe it I’m your wife & we have children but I don’t have any memories or proof. If she has children w/ him & she says she was I’m going to air on the side of caution & believe what she said & what she wrote & that manipulated everyone’s minds to make them robots w/o memories to make people believe you when you probably lied. Bcz the pain & suffering you caused me is not a lie. The destruction you did to my body was not a lie. So how can I believe anything you say? She said the tazer didnt hurt but the raping did? I’m going to air on the side of caution Bcz children were probably starving during COVID from empty hot pockets. 9:50 am pdt hot pockets that were given to schools for children who needed free lunch & breakfast. 9:51 am pdt

incubus wants me to believe I place money above people, even when it comes to family & friends. 😞😤🥵😤😖😭9:52 am pdt I will evaluate myself about this concern. I cannot say I’ve been 100% not condescending. Maybe 🤔 there were a few times. Bcz not a lot of people liked my dad. Maybe 🤔 it’s passed down genetically? 😞 two things I remember my dad saying, if I omit my dads speculation about my mom, we’re: if you eat vegetables you won’t be fat - the people he said this to got very upset 😠 ; & he yelled at an Asian family saying “you’re greedy!” Bcz they did not wait to let him out of parallel parking first but I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ if they realized he was ready to leave & if he left first it would have made it easy 4 them to leave. 9:58 am pdt my dad was thrifty but splurged on some things. My dad only physically hit me once but seemed regretful afterwards. 9:59 am pdt & never did it again. 10 am pdt

10:10 am pdt incubus is heating up my back. Last night incubus made it even more difficult to breathe after giving me more heart ♥️ pain when I was finally able to breathe 🧘🏻‍♀️ & almost fall asleep 😴. This was very late at night or after midnight 🕛? Before 2 am pdt. For many minutes I couldn’t breathe 🧘🏻‍♀️ & head more head/top of head skull 💀 pain. I think 🤔 he’s changing my head shape? 10:13 am pdt agonizing. Still coughing a lot, my mom said she can hear me down the hall of the hotel 🏨. We left more than a day ago. Bcz my aunt & cousin don’t want us around. 10:15 am pdt b4 we left my aunt said we’re not family. My aunt usually says things to people in the family a lot of comments on Facebook, too. She has many Facebooks I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ why. My mom has told me she usually says stuff like that to everyone. Many of the siblings don’t want to talk to her, my mom said. & also my mom says she is different. I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ if everyone is overly sensitive but she gave me a hard time for barricading the door 🚪 w/ a big fan & 3 step folding ladder 🪜 Bcz of fear that someone might force their way in who wants to hurt us, & she called me crazy Bcz of this & gave me a hard time no matter what explanation I gave. 10:21 am I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ if this is karma for something I did, but incubus made me lose my drivers license probably Bcz I didn’t let my sister borrow it for a 21+ years old event. 10:22 am pdt so I have to question incubus’ motives & dealings of karma. 10:23 am pdt b4 my aunt met her ex-husband she was convinced she was destined to have a daughter. & then she met him, married him, & only gave birth to one daughter. I p <- incubus did that 10:25 am pdt I recently gave more thoughts 💭 to this, how incubus is able to promise someone a daughter or son. Then it occurred to me Bcz man has 2 testicles, that one was for making daughters & the other sons. Last year I saw 10:26 am pdt gotta go 10:27 am pdt

10:46 am pdt...

5:45 pmpdt incubus has been attacking me with a lot of acid. Chuncks of tongue 👅 have been destroyed. Makes me think about that incubus also did many acid attacks in my throat, vag, then this evening my left eyeball 👁😒😖😭😤🥵😤🥵😤🥵😤😰🥺 5:48 pmpdt I feel not very confident about myself. I fear who I really am. I have had to fight against a lot of my own feelings a lot that it’s exhausting. 5:50 pmpdt I guess I have more confessions that I have to think about. 😵5:51 pmpdt

something that I was going to write ✍️ earlier b4 I was interrupted by my needs, I’m watching news 📰 secret 🤐 room in Giza pyramid found, tamron hall earlier said something about there are less men in college now? Trying to remember. I think I remember seeing news 📰 that many men, probably in age teens thru early 30s died of heart ♥️ complications? During COVID. Also a young male pharmacist 👨‍⚕️. That’s why I said that incubus was probably killing off good men, if he’s really a cheater/adultery/polygamist/wife beater & now we see Nick carter is suspected of being a rapist. In autocorrect I saw “fake” “rape.” Autocorrect: I Brendan A . Virgin lot very. Vertical vertical. Jv iheartradio Lyme disease. If he’s gone without notice & people close to him don’t know where he is I would be concerned. 6:02 pmpdt. I don’t want to assume that the Nick carter rape is fake. I don’t think that would be nice to an actual victim. 6:04 pmpdt

so, I am having a lot of difficulty breathing. Still. 6:06 pmpdt

6:27 pmpdt turkey found a live dog 🐶 from the earthquake ... earlier when I wrote I was watching news 📰 maybe 🤔 he wasn’t really in the original earthquake? & was wandering? I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️

6:30 🕡 pmpdt Jewish officials in Michigan.. incubus is burning 🔥 me again. I only think my death ☠️ is coming. 6:32 pmpdt

[warsofasoiaf]

The info we have on Aegon's rule is fairly limited even in Fire&Blood. We don't know exactly what he knew&how he interpreted it. But isn't that kind of the point of prophecy in asoiaf, it's about how you interpret it&then take actions based on that interpretation. Presumably he thought uniting Westeros was a good first step, someone else would do it differently, actions=consequences, others get involved & interpret things> butterfly effect..300 years later here we are.

One possible explaination for Aegon is that he did prepare but it amount to nothing because his descendants did not follow through. Maybe Aenys failed to tell Jaehaerys who stopped his funding the Watch, Baelor the Blessed burned his arcane library and the maesters dismissed his warnings as just propaganda to justify his conquest so Gyldayn and Yandel don't ever bother to mention his efforts to prepare in Fire and Blood and The World of Ice and Fire.

Taking both these questions together because they touch on the same issue.

Conquering Westeros is not what I'm saying is making Aegon look foolish. If there is a doom coming from the north, having a united Westerosi kingdom makes sense - a unified kingdom can muster much larger forces against any threat and exhibit greater unity in command than a fractious lot of petty kingdoms. While the prince that was promised and Azor Ahai reborn are not necessarily the same person or the same prophecy (Melisandre uses them interchangeably but not everyone), most of these prophecies do not have the destined one alone. The Last Hero of the First Men had his companions, Azor Ahai is always depicted as a general, leading the virtuous into battle. So having a large kingdom's resources behind this prophesized savior makes sense.

What makes Aegon look foolish is that he is making moves on this prophecy but not following up on it. The Night's Watch is the first obstacle anything that marches from beyond the North will face after the wildlings, so why is Aegon not doing what he can to strengthen the Night's Watch? The Watch declines precipitously between Aegon and Jaehaerys's reign. When the doom does not come and Aegon continues to age, why is not taking further steps to strengthen Westeros against the apocalypse? He has the time to do so, and not acting on it makes him look completely foolish.

Similarly, he's not really preparing his heirs. If the kingdom was founded in order to establish the resources needed to prevent the Others from attacking again, you cannot afford to not your heirs that will inherit the kingdom after you to be lax in their duties. When Aenys is faced with problems, he soils himself, freaks out, and does nothing - that's not the sort of leadership we can have happen when genocide is at the door. We can reasonably predict that some manner of institutional inertia and rot would set in over decades or centuries when life goes on and this prophecy continues to not happen, but Aegon I is still in charge here - he's the one who went west in the first place! Aenys and Maegor offer no indication of understanding of any of this (Jaehaerys wouldn't have received instruction from Aegon, he's a toddler when Aegon dies). So now it looks like he goes west, establishes the Seven Kingdoms, and just says "Meh, good enough." This is a prophecy about the actual apocalypse, and it was taken seriously enough for Aegon to attempt to conquer an entire continent - why the sudden lack of follow-through?

Contrarily, if he didn't know enough about the prophecy, then why is he not trying to find out more about it? He should be commissioning studies, delving into libraries trying to discover more information so he can better prepare...but he's not. Again, it's more like he puts his feet up and says he's done enough.

Don't even get me started on how this valuable information is supposedly lost. Did he not write anything down in his private journals? Commission scribes to make copies? Instruct various people in his household why he was doing what he was doing? Again, this is a prophecy about the apocalypse, why would information not be better protected?

So yeah, all in all, it just makes Aegon and any other Targaryen who knew about this just look like idiots, hence why I don't like it. It feels like a "this would be neat" retcon.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[tamarinfrog-art]

Starting Full time Job. Patreon closing. Future.

I've been writing this journal in my mind past two years. And today is finally the day. Lost my faith at some points. But here I am.

As the title says, I have found a new full time job and I'll be starting in mid April. I started looking for a new job properly about two years ago. And well, world stuff happened but I am glad the search has finally come to an end for now. I worked with a nice company as a freelancer a bit and now they are hiring me for full time. I'll be doing art stuff for them.

Now, this obviously means things will be changing here. I'll put together a little FAQ under.

When will Patreon close? 

This March is the last patreon month I'm making content for. I'll be keeping patreon around till the start of summer, but I won't be creating any official new content nor charging any money there from current members.

(You can still join the patreon and pay if you want any of the old exclusive content while it's still open. Note that I won't take any commissions anymore.)

Will you be taking commissions in the future?

Maybe. I'll be keeping my company name so technically I could still accept commissions if I wanna do some extra work and money. Right now I have no plans but maybe. (I'd more likely be open for projects like the Deviantart commission I did November 2020. But no video game projects. My contract does not permits that.)

Will you still do art streams? What about game streams?

Yes! I enjoy streaming so I'd like to continue doing weekly art streams and game streams when ever. However, since art streams technically were my job and no longer are, I'm more inclined to just relax and not do them if I feel like taking a break.

What happens to Bottled Up?

BUP will continue as a passion project. Which is honestly what I want it to be. A personal project I do for fun and no stress of making it "marketable" and something that would make money. I'll do it for myself. And if people enjoy, that's a bonus! I however, cannot promise regular weekly updates anymore. It will update whenever I get pages done. I do think it will be better for the comic in the long run. While it was nice to "force" myself to make the comic with the regular weekly update. It honestly also stressful and didn't always leave me with much time to plan and write.

What other art will you do?

I'll still also do fan art. You can expect the usual, pokemon, ice climbers and such. I'm also really feeling animations at the moment so hopefully more of those.

What will happen next?

My work won't start till mid April. And I'm considering these weeks up to it as a holiday. So I'll be taking things a bit easy. There are still patreon stuff I wanna do. Including a big document about Bottled Up and how it came to be and first draft of the world and how different it was. This document will be posted on patreon first and this summer publicly. BUP will also go for the no-schedule-update-cycle. Next page will happen when I get it done. Please give me time to relax a bit now and get used to new life cycle with a fulltime job.

I think that covers most of it. If you have anything else in mind, you can ask in comments.

There's a lot else I wanted to write about. Reflect on these 7 years I've been doing patreon. Especially past two years.... Which, honestly were roughest of my life. And covid had nothing to do with it! That was just a cherry on top of the personal shit sundae that was going on at the time. None the less, I'm still dealing with that stuff. But I think I'm doing better now and looking forward to re-plan and build my life. I am getting older and I have plans and things I wanna do now with my life.

None the less, I do wanna thank you all for taking a time to read this and following my art. I like drawing for fun. And if you enjoy my drawings. That's super nice.

I do also wanna thank the people who supported me on patreon and thought my art was worth that support. You kept me afloat these past 7 years. And I'm eternally grateful to you and how much I grew as an artist, especially thanks to your commissions.

This is pretty much 7 years of commission work.

Thank you all. Much love. See you next time. Hei Hei.

[galadrielette]

[when you just can’t decide if you’re committing to another multi-chaper wip so you don’t want to post it ao3 but you do want to share it with people you make a tumblr post about it.]

and i know that it’s delicate - an amy/laurie . . . thing?

based on little women (2019)

Laurie fully intends on meeting Amy at her hotel to escort her to the New Years Eve ball but not long after parting ways with her in the park he hears of her courtship with Frad Vaughn. Fred Vaughn. His friend. His classmate. The stuffy, rich, British ass of a man that Laurie had foolishly introduced to the March family that fateful day at the beach. It had not seemed to matter back then when all he saw was Jo, when all he wanted was Jo. But now that his heart was truly broken and shuttered away in the black recesses of his soul, the thought of little Amy March being courted by Fred Vaughn makes him feel sick.

He drinks instead to drown the thought of the March girls, of the life that he might have led if Jo had just loved him back. He meets two beautiful French ladies who smell of perfume and other men’s cologne. Their eyes are as dark as their hair and the opposite of every sunshine filled March girl that he’s ever thought about. The perfect distraction from his brooding thoughts. 

They laugh at his jokes and tell a few crude ones of their own, hiding their broad smiles behind lace fans. Laurie slips his face behind the shorter of the two’s fan (Marissa is her name or maybe it was Marie, Laurie couldn’t remember when his mind was blurry with drink) and steals a kiss, groaning a bit when she licks at the seam of his lips. They yearn to dance and Laurie is more than willing to accommodate him and what better place than the ball Amy had invited him to? 

Later, he’ll blame the drink and the perfume and lithe fingers that danced along the backs of his hands for his outburst. But he knows that it’s that dark, black part of him, the ugly side that Jo had seen so clearly and turned away from, bursting out of him uncontrollably. 

“I’ll be good, Saint Amy! I’ll be good,” he promises, grabbing onto her wrist to stop her from walking away. 

She’s already disgusted with him, her heartbreak clear on her face. Amy has always had the most expressive face - sometimes even more so than Jo with all her bluster and noise. But he cannot stop himself from digging his grave a little deeper, from pushing at that open wound in them both left by the way he ran away from Jo’s rejection. 

“I feel sorry for you, I truly do,” Amy says, voice low and mouth turned down into a frown. He doesn’t know why it cuts so deep - her disappointment - but it does, burning him from the inside out. “I just wish you’d bear it better.”

He laughs at that, “Oh, don’t worry, Amy. You’ll feel the same as me one day. Just wait.”

“No,” she replies without any thought, without any hesitation, shaking her head. “No, if I couldn’t be loved at least I’d be respected.”

“Ah, yes, and is that what you have with Fred Vaughn, oh great artiste?” he asks with a sneer, waving his drink at her. It spills on the cuffs of his shirt, staining the white silk pink. “Respect? Or is it the 40,000 a year that endears you to him so?”

She gasps, the color draining from her face as the other guests turn to stare at the spectacle they are putting on. Laurie does not think he’s ever hated himself as much as he does when Amy’s eyes fill with tears that she quickly blinks away. She opens her mouth to say something else but Laurie cannot hear it. He won’t. 

“Fred Vaughn, everyone!” he shouts one last time, spilling the rest of his drink onto the dance floor as he backs away from Amy. He thinks he hears her apologize to Fred before he storms out of the hall entirely, the look on Amy’s face chasing him back to his own hotel where another bottle of wine waits for him. 

It takes him less than five minutes to regret every word that slipped from his mouth. He seeks her out the next day at her studio, an apology poised on his mouth. She doesn’t accept it, of course she doesn’t, but she doesn’t ask him to leave either which is probably more than he deserves.  

He listens to her speech about economics and marriage and being a woman. He listens and he thinks about it and he thinks some more and when his heart had filled his throat as he unbuttoned her apron, Theodore Laurence made a decision. 

They’re in the park, casually discussing his lack of direction, when he can bear it no longer. It’s not like it was with Jo - all emotion and yelling and forcing her to hear him. He’s quiet this time, “Don’t marry him.”

“What?”

Laurie repeats himself, walking towards her with his hands in his pockets. He knows that his heart should be pounding, he should be nervous and sweating and down on one knee with a ring in his hand but he’s already started and he won’t stop now. 

“No,” she barely mutters, face melting into one of pure anguish. It makes his stomach drop but he won’t back down. He reaches out a hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, contradicting her at the same time. He wants to cup her cheek, wants to drag her face up to his to kiss the denials from her mouth. “No. No. Stop it. You’re being mean.”

He drops his hand to his side, ice running through his veins, “How? How am I being mean?”

“I have been second to Jo my whole life,” Amy starts, chest heaving and face turning red in her distress. Laurie wants nothing more than to pull her into his arms, to soothe the hurts that he caused in his youth, to do anything just so that she will smile at him again. “And I will not be the one you settle for because you cannot have her!”

“No!” Laurie blurts, shaking his head vigorously. Amy scoffs, rolling her eyes, clearly gearing up to argue with him. Laurie grabs her by her upper arms, pulling her towards him so that she can’t get away. Her eyes widen with shock - maybe a hint of fear. “That’s not it. That’s not it at all, Amy. I’m not settling - how could anyone settle for Amy March?”

“So, what? You’ve magically developed feelings for me?” Amy whispers, spitting the word out like it’s poison. 

“Would it be that shocking?” Laurie asks in answer, frowning down at her. His glances at her mouth briefly - pictures the way she would go soft under his lips, the way she would cling to him. He chokes down the fantasy and takes a deep breath. “That I would find you to be everything a man could want in a wife? That I would get down on one knee for you? We’ve spent nearly every day of the past month with each other - not to mention the years that we’ve spent knowing each other. Who else can say they know you as I do?”

“Laurie, wh-what are you saying?” Amy asks. She reaches up and grips his elbows with her hands, the warmth of her palms seeping through the thin fabric of his suit jacket and shirt. 

“Marriage is an economic proposition, yes?” Laurie asks, recalling their previous conversation. Amy frowns, her grief and shock changing to confusion, but she nods all the same. “I’m not as rich as Fred Vaughn but I am wealthy, Amy, and who else would love your sisters the same as you?”

“No,” Amy repeats, shaking her head again. She lets go of him, wrenching herself free from his hands and turning away from him. “I will not . . . no, Laurie. No.”

“You know that I’m right,” Laurie insists, following her as she wanders away from him. He’s sure that she wants space but he can’t give it to her, can’t do anything other than follow her blindly around the park. “This makes sense, Amy. Marry me and let us be happy, Amy.”

He ignores the way his stomach twists up when he realizes that it’s the same words he’d said to Jo in his desperation. He doesn’t feel the same urgency as he did then. Instead, there’s a calm sort of confidence. Where it’s coming from, Laurie can’t say but he’s willing to revel in it a little. 

Somehow, her face manages to drop even further. Laurie thinks it would be kinder to just gut him right then and there. He’s sure she hears it in his voice when he mumbles her name again, taking her tiny hand in both of his. He rubs his thumb across her knuckles and is tempted to press a kiss to her palm. 

“You cannot exchange one March sister for the other, Mr. Laurence,” Amy says, voice stiff and unyielding. The formality of her address makes his stomach drop to the bottoms of his shoes. She meets his eyes, tears falling down her cheeks. She makes no move to wipe them away, no attempt to hide her aching heart from him. He doesn’t know if it's because she wants to hurt him in turn or if it’s as simple as her not caring anymore. “I am not Jo and I never will be. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish here, Mr. Laurence, but I very much would appreciate it if you would let me go. I’m sure Aunt March is looking for me.”

He doesn’t let her go and she makes no move to free herself this time. 

“You said you were to be an ornament to society,” Laurie says, forging ahead all the same. “And, frankly, I am inept at such things. I am in need of a wife who is everything that is charm and grace and beauty and there is none better than you, Amy March. You do not love me. I know that. You despise me. I have accepted that. But we were friends once, weren’t we? Can we not get back to that?”

“Friends do not marry,” Amy mutters though it is a weak argument. “Friends do not offer up loveless marriages to make up for their character deficiencies! You must make yourself a better man, I cannot do it for you!”

“Amy,” he groans, rolling his eyes which just earns him a shocked gasp. Laurie grits his teeth and does his best to not squeeze her hand too tightly in his frustration. “Don’t you see? You make me want to be that better man and I know I can do it with you by my side! In return, I will take care of you and your family - Marmie, Beth, Jo. All of them - even Hannah and mean old Aunt March. Fred Vaugn would carry you off to London, keeping you thousands of miles away from your beloved family. The home I’m offering is just across the way. We can be happy, Amy, I know we can.”

He’s practically begging but he can’t stop himself. He doesn’t want to stop himself. He’s determined to show her just how much he is willing to humble himself before her. He just . . . he doesn’t think he could survive watching her marry Fred Vaughn, survive without her smiles and her rebukes and her laughter.  She has to see that he is the better option, that he will keep her close to her family and close to his heart. She has to see. 

“I need time to think,” Amy mumbles, avoiding his eyes. She finally pulls her hands free, taking a step away from him. She looks up at him but she’s focused on a spot just over his shoulder. “You will give me that, won’t you? Time to consider your proposal?”

Laurie just nods once. Amy barely acknowledges him as she gathers her art supplies and walks determinedly out of the park. She doesn’t look back.

It takes her a full day (the entirety of which he spends alternating between pacing his room and finally writing a response to Grandfather’s request to join him in London) to write him a short note. His hands shake as he opens the envelope. It’s a simple, one worded answer, Yes.

[ragingbookdragon]

I'm Only A Crack In This Castle Of Glass (Hardly Anything Else I Need To Be) PT. 2

Batfamily x Batsis Story!

Word Count: 2.7K Warnings: Explicit Language and Angst!

Author's Note: It's amazing how much one can write when they've got a story to tell, eh? Enjoy! -Thorne

Set Three Years After PT. 1:

Life for her revolved around work in the A.M. and community college in the P.M. If she wasn’t brewing cappuccinos and baking apple turnovers, she was writing research papers and taking physics exams. It was hectic and it was hard, much harder than anything she’d done, but it was her life, and she was going to make the best of it. The money she’d taken from her savings account had only lasted her long enough to get a decent one bedroom one bathroom apartment in a small complex and the rest went towards tuition. The coffee shop two blocks from her building had fortunately been looking for a new hire when she arrived, and she took the chance where it was, not going to look the gift horse in its mouth.

The life she lived now was a complete 180 from her old one. Back then, she didn’t have to work (though she did at a high-end department store in the mall—her father got her the job but at least she had one) and there wasn’t anything she couldn’t get with a swipe of a credit card. Now she was on a budget that consisted of five and ten tips and the last time she actually bought a new pair of shoes over a hundred dollars had been last year when she needed them for an interview, and even then, it cost her a limb.

Everything was so different, but she didn’t want to go back, preferring to be on her own and away from Gotham. From the newspapers and media, her family had convinced the world that she’d taken a few years to go overseas and spend time in Europe. A mental reprieve, they’d called it. Partially true if she was honest, but she wasn’t going to open her mouth about it lest they learned where she was. She didn’t go through all that trouble to be found within three years.

“Melisandre.”

Maybe I should move again?

“Melisandre?”

Moving would take a long time but it would be effective.

“Melisandre!”

Someone grabbed her arm over the counter, and she jerked with a start, eyes widening as she finally realized someone was standing in front of her.

“Barry?” she asked, and he smiled.

“Finally,” he snorted. “I’ve been calling your name for like ten minutes now.”

She felt a flush creep along her cheeks, and she smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I was thinking about something. Usual?” she murmured, marking a disposable coffee cup with a marker.

Barry nodded with understanding and handed her a credit card. “I hear you. How’s studying going for that physics exam?” His blue eyes darted to the science book she had sprawled over the counter.

“It’s going,” she muttered and turned, starting to mix together his latte. “I still can’t get the thermodynamic laws down. They’re a bit confusing.”

“Yeah, it’ll take a while. You know if you need my help, all you gotta do is ask, right?”

Shrugging, she glanced at him as she poured. “You’re a busy man, Barry. I can’t have you trying to help me while trying to solve cases too.”

Barry chuckled and accepted the freshly poured latte. “I’m an excellent multitasker, Melisandre. Besides, you don’t have to worry about it messing with my work.” She opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off. “Seriously, shoot me an email about whatever questions you’ve got, and I’ll take a look at ‘em, okay?”

Her eyes narrowed warily, and she inquired, “You’re sure it won’t interfere? I’d hate for you to get in trouble for working on non-work-related things.”

“I promise, Melisandre,” he smiled and accepted a bag of apple turnovers too. He couldn’t help but pull one out and bite into it, letting out a delighted noise. “God, what do you put in these things? They’re phenomenal.”

She giggled and winked as he handed her a twenty. “A baker never reveals her secret, but if you really want to know, I use a little vanilla extract.”

Barry shook his head with a chuckle and started making his way to the door. “See you later, Melisandre!”

Waving at him, she called, “Bye Barry! Take care!”

Just as he opened the door, he stopped and spun around, suddenly asking, “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?”

Blinking, she glanced at the physics book then back to him. “Well, I was going to be studying for the exam…why?”

“My nephew is in town and I wanted to introduce him to you. I’ve already mentioned you a bunch of times and he wants to meet you.”

Her face pinched. “Barry Allen, what did you tell that poor boy?”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “That there’s a lonely college student who has no friends but has the greatest baking abilities in the world.”

“I cannot believe you told him I had no friends! Why!”

“You don’t.”

“Well, yeah! But still! You don’t just tell someone that! It makes me seem like there’s something wrong with me!”

Barry waved a hand. “Relax. Wally’s the least jerky person you’ll meet.” He smiled. “You’ll like him.”

She frowned. “I still don’t think this is a good idea, Barry.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s here to see you and your wife, not come meet the person who feeds your apple turnover addiction.”

The blonde’s cheeks turned a dark shade of crimson and he spluttered, “It is not an addiction!” he spun around and marched through the door. “I’ll send him over tomorrow! Bye!”

And he left before she could even say a word.

***

It had to be hieroglyphics. It was either that or some ancient cuneiform he’d recently taken up interest in, because there was no way whatever he’d written on the paper was English.

She cocked her head to the side, muttering, “Jesus Christ, Barry, did you write this on a caffeine bender? Your writing is like chicken scratch.” She tipped her head to the other side trying to decipher it when someone leaned over her shoulder.

“Which problem do you need help on?” they asked, and she pointed to the sheet.

“I have no idea what that says.” She turned and saw a red-haired stranger. “If you think you can, be my guest.”

He took it and read over it a moment, green eyes scanning over the page then he said, “Let’s see, he wrote first, ‘The third law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system at absolute zero is a well-defined constant. This is because a system at zero temperature exists in its ground state, so that its entropy is determined only by the degeneracy of the ground state.’”

Pausing, he scanned it again and added, “Then he marked a note beside it and wrote, ‘In simplistic terms, if an object reaches the absolute zero temp. of (0 K = -273.15C = -459.67°F), its atoms will stop moving. In other words, at absolute zero, the entropy of a perfectly crystalline substance is zero.’”

Glancing at her, he smiled. “Make sense now?”

She huffed and nodded, taking the sheet back. “Yeah, thanks. I don’t even know how you managed to get all that from his writing.”

He nodded. “Yeah, Barry’s handwriting is deplorable.”

Her eyes went wide, and she immediately questioned, “How did you?”

Sticking a hand out, he greeted, “Wally West. I’m Barry’s nephew.”

Shaking his hand, she couldn’t help but laugh. “I can’t believe he actually told you to come up here and meet me.” A smile came across her lips. “I’m Melisandre Hale.”

“That’s a pretty name, Melisandre.”

“Thank you,” she grinned and waved him to one of the bar-stools on the adjacent side of the counter. “Have a seat and I’ll get you something to eat and drink.” As she slid behind the counter, she inquired, “Anything specific?”

Wally stared at the bored, offhandedly mentioning, “Barry said something about apple turnovers that could make you cry with joy, so I’ve gotta have one of those.” His evergreen eyes met hers. “Maybe two if I’m being honest.”

She grunted, but a grin crossed her lips, nevertheless. “Barry exaggerates a lot, Wally. They’re good, but they’re not mind-blowingly good.”

“Then I guess that leaves me to be the judge,” he countered with a smirk. “What should I drink?”

She thought for a moment then offered, “Have any judgments about drinking before five o’clock?”

He let out a startled laugh and shook his head. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

With a grin, she turned and started working her magic and a moment later, she was sliding a plate with two iced apple turnovers over along with a clear steaming mug of dark coffee with cream on top. She leaned her hip on the counter and watched him pick up one of the apple turnovers and take a bite.

Immediately his eyes went wide, and he exclaimed, “Holy shit.” He gaped at her. “This is delicious, Melisandre!”

Despite herself, her cheeks warmed, and she gave him an easy smile. “Thanks, Wally.” She nodded to the crystal mug. “Try the Irish coffee.”

He did so and tossed his head back, letting out an exaggerated groan that had her laughing until her stomach hurt. Wally was on his second turnover and he looked at her.

“You’ve gotta open up a bakery or something, Melisandre. Your pastries are awesome.”

She huffed and took the plate from him as he finished the last bite. “Let me get through college first and then I’ll wonder how to rack up enough to open a shop.”

“What are you studying?”

Pausing, she tossed a quick glance at him. “There’s no specification right now. I’m just doing general studies to get all the basics out of the way.” She put the dish in the sink and started rinsing it. “I’m at the four-C right now.” His brows pulled together, and she added, “Central City Community College.”

He snapped his fingers. “Right! It’s been a while since I went to the four-C.”

Her eyes found his and she curiously asked, “Did you go there?”

“Yeah, a few years back.”

“You don’t look that much older than I am. How old are you, Wally?”

He sipped his coffee and set it down as he replied, “I turned twenty-eight a month ago.”

“Happy belated birthday,” she smiled, and he gave her one in return.

“Thanks. How about you?”

“I turned twenty-one a few months ago.”

“Hmm, happy belated birthday to you as well.” He grinned, quipping, “How’s it feel to finally be able to legally do all the things you were doing before you turned twenty-one?”

She shot him a look. “Shame on you, Wally West, for assuming I was doing illegal things.” He chuckled and she shrugged. “But to answer your question, it feels great, so thanks.”

Wally snorted at that. “My best friend and I got absolutely hammered on our twenty-firsts and swore to never drink hard liquor again after we woke up in the bathroom in our underwear after passing out on the floor.”

A shudder passed over her at her own memory of waking up beside the toilet after her birthday celebration with a bottle of white rum. She cocked a hand up with her water bottle in it. “Here, here,” she toasted and took a sip as Wally raised his coffee and drank too.

She glanced at him. “Are you in school, or are you done?”

“I finished a while ago. I work out of a tower with a group of friends in Manhattan.”

For a moment, her eyes drifted to the simple pair of jeans and graphic shirt he was wearing. She lived in the upper area of Gotham and she knew what uptown Manhattan was like, and it wasn’t jeans and t-shirts.

Evidently, he did too because he scowled, “I have suits and ties, thank you very much.”

She snorted and took the empty mug from him. “I didn’t say anything, Wally.”

“You made a face.”

“Is a face a ground to be hostile?” she grinned. “I was just wondering what type of business in Manhattan ran on flash t-shirts and skinny jeans.” She eyed him. “Tech?”

He shrugged. “It’s…a bit of everything if I’m being honest.” It sounded like he didn’t exactly want to say, and she let it be, rinsing out his cup before setting it to dry.

A buzz sounded and she felt for her phone when he said, “That’s mine.” Wally pulled his phone out, read the message, and stood up. “I’ve gotta go, Melisandre.”

She nodded and took the twenty-dollar bill he handed her, waving her off when she tried to hand back the change. As he started towards the door, she called, “Wally?”

He turned on his heel and waited and she felt foolish for saying it, but she admitted with warmth in her cheeks, “It’s been a while since I had any semblance of a friend…so thanks for this afternoon.”

Wally gave her a pearly white grin. “Barry said you’d say something like that,” he chuckled as she scowled and he added sincerely, “Can never have too many friends, Melisandre…and I hope you’ll become a great one of mine. So far, you already are.”

She smiled, “Same here, Wally.” The bell signaled his exit and she let out a heavy sigh as her heart warmed in her chest at the feeling of a newfound friendship.

***

She was dead on her feet when she finally got through her front door and into her living room, practically collapsing onto the couch. Though it wasn’t far from the truth as she flopped down and toed off her shoes, heaving a long and winded sigh as she stared at the dark ceiling. She wanted to turn on the lamp on the table beside her, but she didn’t want to move. Hell, she barely wanted to get up and take a shower, so she didn’t go to bed sweaty.

Just a moment. She thought. Just a moment to close my eyes and I’ll get up and go shower.

Of course, the second the shut them, she was opening them to her phone telling her it was two A.M. She groaned and picked herself off the couch to shuffle into her bedroom, and when she got there, she peeled off the clothes from her body and let them fall, not caring about the hamper just a foot away. She’d do it tomorrow after class.

The shower was quick, and she crawled into bed a few minutes later, glancing out the window at the stars that were still in the night sky. Even if she tried to avoid thinking about it, she couldn’t, and her mind drifted to when she was a young girl and would stare out the window in her bedroom back in Gotham, watching the spotlight come alive and paint the silhouette of the bat symbol against the night sky.

She missed them. She missed them a lot. Missed eating meals at a full table and the laughter in the manor. Hell, she even missed being ignored, because at least then she could see familiar faces every day. Now, it was wake up, go to work, go to class, then come home. And the process repeated every morning. She was alone in a city where she didn’t know anyone except for one forensic scientist and his wife, going to a college that didn’t even have her real identity. She’d not even said the name “(Y/N) Wayne” out loud for fear that someone with super hearing would hear her and tell her father, instead going by “Melisandre Hale”, a twenty-one-year-old born and raised Central City citizen going to community college. It pained her to admit, that with her decision to grant herself the freedom she desired, it came with a heavy price, and that was the loneliness. And it was worse compared to what it was like back then.

Sighing, she rolled over and pulled the covers up over her head, hoping that when she shut her eyes, she’d stop thinking about what she left behind. Unfortunately, the universe and her mind were never kind, and as she drifted to sleep, she saw the pained faces of her family.

[tennessoui]

hi all of your aus are amazing! pls what happens with divorced!obiwan and the twins?

hey!! sorry this took so long i had to think of an appropriate cliffhanger

this is a continuation of this ficlet and this ficlet, where divorced!obi-wan accidentally acquires a partner and a set of twins.

(2k WHOOPS)

The twins are not, and probably have never been described by anyone except their father, angels. They take to Obi-Wan as well as Obi-Wan takes to them, which is to say that all three of them watch each other suspiciously until one day Luke launches himself off the top of the fridge--how the fuck did he manage to get up there--and Obi-Wan drops his morning toast in a frantic bid to catch him.

After that, Leia and Luke apparently decide he is Another Anakin Who Is Just Around A Lot Less But Is Better At Reading Bedtime Stories and deign to treat him as such.

Obi-Wan decides that he’s going to have a heart attack by the age of fifty. Do all children see a childproof house as a challenge?

It somehow takes both a longer and shorter time to win over Anakin’s favor, mostly because Obi-Wan isn’t sure what the man’s thinking at any given moment. He seems to blow hot and cold depending on how he woke up or how the work day goes. Some days, Obi-Wan comes home from campus and Anakin and the twins have waited to eat until he’s there. Sometimes they’ve eaten and there’s a meal under foil on the stove just for Obi-Wan.

(“I don’t know how you do it,” Obi-Wan tells him one night after the children are put to bed. “I mean, work from home with your job, mind the children, and cook?”

“They made me head of the R&D department a few months ago,” Anakin admits, taking a sip of his second glass of wine. “So I’m doing a lot more checking through other people’s work instead of making my own. It just means I can do that and make something edible--no, really, you just can’t cook, Obi-Wan, I’m not the best either.”

“Do you miss getting to make something other than food?” Obi-Wan asks eventually, giving himself enough time to recover from the sound of the other’s giggles.

Anakin shrugs languidly. “It’s better salary, and I’m the youngest ever in the company to have the position. Means I’ll pay off my student loans quicker, same with my mom’s hospital bills. Doesn’t matter what I want.”

Obi-Wan’s chest hurts and he wants to lean across the gap between their chairs and place his hand on Anakin’s arm, but they don’t know each other like that. It’s only been a month and a half since they moved in. Still. “It always matters what you want,” he insists. “And I think you’re amazing.”

Anakin blushes bright scarlet and takes a huge gulp of wine, and Obi-Wan wonders if this is a throwing-yourself-off-the-fridge break through.)

(It’s not because the next day, Anakin doesn’t say a single word to him, which bothers him more than he’d like to admit.)

(“Am I in the wrong for wanting to get along with my housemate?” Obi-Wan asks Quinlan despairingly during their office hours that he should be using to grade papers. Instead all he can think about is Anakin Skywalker and the goddamn cold shoulder he’s been getting from the man for the past three days.

“Yeah,” Quin says absentmindedly, marking something with a red pen before looking up at Obi-Wan’s outraged intake of breath. “I mean, no. I mean, sorry, Obi, what are we even talking about now? Is it still your hot new roommate with the two kids? Because that’s what we were talking about an hour and a half ago.”

Obi-Wan crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “I’m just not sure I appreciate--”

“And you said he’s not been hanging around in the living room when you get home? But he’s still leaving you meals in the kitchen? And you’re upset about the free food?”

Obi-Wan is upset at the lack of Anakin’s presence, but he thinks that’s probably not the right thing to say here.

“Maybe he’s just tired?” Quinlan puts down his pen and rests his chin on one of his hands as he looks at Obi-Wan. “From the kids and the job and putting up with your moody ass. C’mon, Obi, what’s really getting you worked up?”

Obi-Wan purses his lips and stares at the desk in front of him, but he had come to Quinlan for help. He should at least be honest about what’s eating at him, even though he knows how silly it will sound when given a voice. “...Satine always waited up for me,” he mutters. “Until she didn’t.”

Quinlan’s quiet for a worryingly large amount of seconds, before he reaches out to pat Obi-Wan gently on the arm. “Oh, Obi,” he says pityingly. “Repeat after me. You cannot make your new roommate your rebound from your thirty year marriage.”

Obi-Wan scoffs. That’s not the problem at all. “That’s not the problem at all,” he says, not defensively in the slightest. “I think I’m just worried about the children not having enough structure in their lives.”

“Right,” Quinlan says, not quite managing to hide the skepticism in his voice. “Then you should talk to him. For the sake of the children.”

Obi-Wan will absolutely not be doing that, but it’s a nice thought.)

The real turning point in Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship happens five months after the Skywalkers move in.

Anakin and Obi-Wan are in the living room. Anakin is trying to braid Leia’s hair while Obi-Wan tries to pretend he isn’t watching. From the kitchen, there’s a very, very loud crash and the sound of something shattering.

Both adults leap up from their seats immediately and run to the other room.

Luke is standing in the epi-center of disaster, little face scrunched up like he doesn’t know whether or not to cry. At the sight of his dad and Obi-Wan, he starts to wail, moving forward and reaching for Anakin.

Obi-Wan, who is wearing shoes inside the house (a point of contention between himself and Anakin), grabs Luke roughly and picks him up by the armpits before he can cut his feet on the glass. He hands him over to Anakin to soothe, stepping further into the kitchen to find the dustpan he keeps in one of the pantries.

It’s very obvious what broke, though Obi-Wan can’t for the life of him understand how Luke got ahold of Satine’s heavy cake stand. He can definitely understand how Luke dropped it, as the thing was ridiculously heavy.

It had been one of the only things left in the house that had been Satine’s. She’d left it, and Obi-Wan had been too bitter or petty to point it out to her. Yes, it had been her mother’s. No, keeping it had not made him feel any better. But it’s not like Satine ever baked anything anyway.

Good for Luke, actually, for doing what Obi-Wan never could bring himself to do.

He grabs the broom and dustpan and marches back to the pieces of shattered glass. Anakin has placed Luke on the counter, ostensibly to check to make sure his feet are fine if the boy would ever let go of his father’s neck. Leia is peering around at the mess on the floor.

When Obi-Wan comes back and starts sweeping everything away, she darts forward to pick up a rather sizeable chunk.

“Don’t touch that,” Obi-Wan says sharply, much harsher than he intended. Leia drops it instantly and scurries back to her father, eyes wide and sort of watery. Oh, fuck.

“Hey,” Anakin snaps immediately. “She’s just trying to help and Luke didn’t mean to break--whatever that is.”

Obi-Wan holds up his hand to cut Anakin off. “I’m not mad,” he promises all three of the Skywalkers. And he’s not even lying. He’s really not mad, hasn’t even thought to be mad at this last piece of proof of his relationship with Satine shattering on his kitchen floor. “I just don’t want either of you to cut yourself. Glass like this can be very dangerous and none of you are wearing shoes.”

“Promise?” Luke asks, untucking his red face from Anakin’s neck so he can peer up at Obi-Wan.

“I’m sorry I was a bit rough,” Obi-Wan apologizes, coming over and bending down a bit so he’s on the same level as Luke. “I was just worried about you. Promise.”

Luke sniffles but lets go of Anakin to throw himself at Obi-Wan, apologizing all the way.

“Hush,” Obi-Wan says as Leia scrambles up his leg, vying for his attention. With his hands full of children that aren’t his, he raises his head to look at Anakin who’s watching them with a very strange expression on his face. He tilts his head toward the broom and then down to the kids in his arms. “Come along,” he tells them both. “Leia, I’ll finish your braids if you’d like.”

“Braid my hair too!” Luke demands with a pull on Obi-Wan’s shirt.

Luke’s hair is floppy but awfully short. “I’m sure we can figure something out,” Obi-Wan says generously, leaving the kitchen.

“I suppose I’ll just clean this up then?” Anakin calls sarcastically behind them.

“Thank you, darling,” Obi-Wan responds.

There’s the sound of something else breaking, but it’s not Obi-Wan’s problem at the moment.

(A year later, Anakin mentions something over morning coffee about looking for a new apartment, now that he’s got everything straightened out. “We’ll get out of your hair,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’ll look today since it’s my day off.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t want to examine why that idea makes something curl tightly in his stomach, making him feel vaguely nauseous, but it does. On his way out of the house, he unplugs the router, and then after a second of thought, takes it with him just in case.)

(Quinlan laughs his head off when Obi-Wan sheepishly puts the router down on the desk in front of him. “It’s a bad market right now,” Obi-Wan says defensively. “I’m just looking out for him.”

“Obi, I mean this in the best way possible, but there are at least four professors in the psych department that would probably love to do a case study on you.”)

(Two years after the Skywalkers move in, Obi-Wan is running late for a meeting with the head of his department. The man is stepping down, finally retiring, and Obi-Wan thinks that perhaps he’ll be tapped as the new head. It would mean dropping some of his classes, but it would be worth it.

“I made you a breakfast wrap,” Anakin greets him at the door, holding out a paper bag. “It’s got that salsa you like in it.”

The salsa Obi-Wan likes is the mild version of what Anakin and the kids eat, but Anakin treats it as if it’s from another planet entirely.

“Good luck!” he says with a sweet smile, also passing Obi-Wan a travel mug of what’s hopefully fully caffeinated tea. Obviously Obi-Wan needs it. He got perhaps two full hours of sleep last night, tossing and turning and thinking about this meeting and now he’s running late and his tie is crooked and none of his favorite sweater vests were clean.

“Thank you, dear one,” Obi-Wan mumbles, mind somewhere else. If traffic isn’t too bad, he could still be on time.

“Text me how it goes!” Anakin chirps, following Obi-Wan out the door to stand on the front porch with his arms crossed in an attempt to fight off the early winter chill.

“Yes, of course,” Obi-Wan replies, turning around to brush an absent-minded kiss to Anakin’s lips before hurrying to his car. It’s a twenty minute commute. If he gets his preferred parking spot and runs to the department building, he won’t be late at all.

Is that too much to hope for?

He starts the car and pulls out of the driveway, looking back in the rearview mirror to see Anakin standing frozen on the porch. That’s strange, usually the other man can’t stand being out in the cold.

Obi-Wan gets to the first stop-sign out of the neighborhood before he realizes what he’s done. It’s lucky that he’s already slowing down, because he slams on the brakes. Did he--

Did he kiss Anakin? Did he really kiss Anakin as if he does it all the time? As if they were in a relationship?

Oh shit.

Frantically, he pulls out his cellphone from his bag and checks to see if he has any new messages. He doesn’t.

Oh. Shit.

[phoenixyfriend]

If you are doing them the soulmate fic starter 3 or 9 for rexwalker? I love all your star wars stuff so much

soulmate au prompts

3. the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks on your bodies. 9. the one where your soulmate’s last words to you are written on your body.

Featuring marginally-less-terrible Jango with more excuses than usual.

------

The Kaminoans hate soul marks.

Rex knows this from the day he knows to ask. The Nulls and Alphas don’t have any soul marks, just scars where there was once a promise. The eldest clones have records, at least, where the scientists had taken photos before beginning th surgeries, but the marks themselves are long gone.

Prime had found out about the removals and thrown a fit, raging so intensely that Nala Se had ended up intubated from the damage he’d dealt, and she hadn’t been the only one. Rex isn’t old enough to remember that, but Cody is, and he whispers the story in the dead of night more than once. Nobody likes Prime very much, except Boba, but that’s one of the few instances they can point to and say ‘he cares more than he likes to admit.’

It’s anathema on Mandalore, one brother claims, a light in his eyes that Rex hasn’t ever seen before. That’s what I heard him telling one of the aruetti trainers.

So is refusing your children so much as a name, another grouses, and the conversation dies an ugly little death. So is letting your children die just because you don’t think they’re good enough. So is turning your back from even letting them be part of your house, let alone part of your clan. Sounds like he cares more about our soul marks than he does for our lives.

Rex doesn’t know how to address that. He does get a personal visit from Prime, one day, gets asked to show his little marking to the man that is, in some ways, his father.

“Another one,” Jango Fett mutters to the trainer that came with him, the woman holding a datapad and ready to record whatever it is that they’re looking for. He passes a thumb over the marking, frowning. “A lightsaber, lit white, with pale blue halo, between a set of symbolic Jaig eyes. The eyes are dark blue, slightly desaturated. I think they’re meant to frame it like an exaggerated beskad crossguard.”

“Sir?” Rex asks.

“That makes six,” Jango says, still so quiet, and then shakes his head. “Thank you for showing me, 7567.”

“Rex,” he corrects, before he can second-guess himself. “I’m Rex.”

“Thank you, Rex.”

------

The rumors say that anyone with a lightsaber soul mark is going to have a jedi for a soulmate.

Rex isn’t sure how true that is, but he’s eager to find out.

Prime gets more erratic, more unpleasant at times and almost awkwardly nice at others. Rex meets the others who got Jedi soul marks. He’s the youngest, so far.

Jango tells them all to hide the markings, and to keep them secret. They’d already all known that much, that only batchmates should be told about soul marks. All the adults that should know already do, after all.

“Where’s your dad going?” Rex asks once, when Boba’s been handed over to Cody’s squad for looking after while Prime goes haring off on some trip that nobody gets to know about. Rex hangs out with Cody’s squad more than his own batch, it feels like, but that’s a whole thing that he’s not supposed to talk about since the late transfer to command track.

“Dunno,” Boba says, kicking his feet back and forth. “My soul mark came in. Something about it made him really angry, I think.”

Rex doesn’t ask to see it.

It’s not his place.

------

The Alpha batch is getting quieter, angrier, and end up in hushed conversations with Prime and some of the trainers so often that the rumors start up harder than before. Rex keeps his head down, because the Kaminoans get antsier when Jango does. Soul marks come up more often, and Rex gets called in to talk to the Alpha clones about his mark. He’s not supposed to, but Prime says it’s important, and Prime is in charge.

“Oh, is that all it took?” one of the Alphas sneers, and Prime shoots them a look that has Rex taking a few hasty steps back. The Alpha clone isn’t even fully grown yet, by natborn standards, but they don’t back down. “What, ready to stop being a dar’buir--”

“That’s enough,” Prime says, low and hard, and the Alpha clone rolls their eyes. “There’s a child here.”

“So now you care about that?”

Rex is escorted back to his rooms.

------

Decommissioning finally stops, for all that it requires Jango almost decapitating a Kaminoan, and someone Rex hopes he never sees again shows up.

(His memory is blurred. He’s sure the man was human, and tall. Elderly enough to have white hair, probably? A... there was fabric that swished when he turned, something dramatic, but...)

(He is not the only one that cannot remember.)

It takes years for anything else to come of it all... at least where the clones can see.

------

Rex is fully grown, as far as clones go. His aging is supposed to slow down to ‘natborn normal’ now, because he’s reached his full height and most of his brainpower, and he’s officially old enough to fight on the field if the war starts tomorrow.

It might.

“Hey, look up.”

Rex listens, and looks, and sees a natborn with Nala Se, pale skinned and with reddish hair, soaked to the bone. They wear robes, brown and heavy-looking. Even as he watches, another natborn jogs up from behind, also sodden and pale, but with darker hair that sticks up despite the water. A third joins them, a tad slower and more controlled; this one wears all white, and they--maybe she?-- are slight and small and poised in a way that Rex thinks might be how a natborn leader carries themselves, if they aren’t a soldier.

They pass on through the walkway, showing emotions that the Kaminoans can’t read and the clones absolutely can. None of it is... good.

“Shit,” someone mutters. “That was a Jedi.”

“Venn--”

“What if they don’t want us?”

------

Rex is called to Prime’s rooms.

He tries not to look at the wide eyes of the brothers he’s been gossiping with, just stands and pulls on his full kit. He hesitates at his bucket, but then pops it on and marches to what might be his doom. It’s probably not.

He hopes it’s not.

He knocks, and is let in by Boba, and sits down on the couch when Prime tells him to. He removes his helmet when asked. Boba hops up onto the couch between Rex and his father, and leans in against Rex’s side.

There’s a list on the table, one he recognizes, quickly writing out all the paired elements on the Jedi-Clone soul marks. Nobody who isn’t already involved in the project would know it. He spots the ‘yellow tickets’ that Bly got tattooed on his face recently, the ones he won’t claim are or aren’t related to his mark. He spots his own listing of Jaig eyes.

“Prime?”

His... progenitor, maybe, in this situation, looks at him, and holds up a hand. “You saw the list. You can guess why Rex is here.”

Oh. Prime’s using his name without prompting. That’s nice.

“I can’t read it,” the younger Jedi says, with something that might be a pout. Rex wants  to roll his eyes, but his helmet is on the table. People would see.

“It’s in Mando’a,” the elder tells him, voice low, and then glances between Rex and the younger Jedi. “Fett, how did you know which one to call? I can guess some things, but--”

“I have a good eye. The hilts are all different. Only one matches.”

“I see.”

Rex fidgets, and tries not to wonder at... at... oh. The younger Jedi’s lightsaber hilt does match Rex’s soul mark.

Boba notices when Rex starts picking at his glove, pressing a finger right to the mark on his wrist, and frowns up at him. He grabs Rex’s hand to still it, and tries to ask a question with his eyebrows. He is mostly unsuccessful.

“Anakin,” the elder Jedi says. Rex still doesn’t know his name. “Your hand, please?”

“Why?”

“...you’ll understand in a minute,” the Jedi says, long-suffering in the way of the trainers who dealt with the youngest cadets. “Your hand. No, the other one.”

“Why do you need my hand?”

“Reasons, Anakin. You there, ah... Rex, was it?”

“Yessir.”

The Jedi flinches. “Right. I suppose I’ll have to get used to that... right, Rex, can you come here? I imagine you know what it is that I’m looking to compare.”

Rex has been taught to listen to Jedi, but he has no idea who he’s supposed to listen to here. The older Jedi is probably in charge, but Rex hasn’t been assigned to anyone yet, so isn’t Prime still technically the closest thing he has to a CO?

He glances at Prime, who just gestures for Rex to go ahead with it.

Rex pulls off a glove, pulls back his sleeve, and bares the symbol on his wrist for inspection.

The younger Jedi’s face morphs from confused irritation to surprise, and then... something Rex doesn’t want to analyze too closely. He’s not sure if it’s wonder or horror. He wasn’t aware the expressions could look so similar.

The Jedi--Anakin--pulls back his own sleeve, moves his wrist to Rex’s and watches as the marks glow faintly from the proximity.

“Looks like Fett was right,” the elder Jedi mutters. He doesn’t sound happy. He looks at the other natborn, the one Rex is pretty sure is a woman, and raises an eyebrow.

She shakes her head, eyes closed.

“You said there were others?” the elder Jedi prompts, and Prime nods. “We are no more open about our marks than most, but I can spot one, maybe two, that I can guess at. I’d need to see the actual markings to confirm, of course, and I imagine that wouldn’t be something anyone would be happy with.”

“The rest can happen naturally,” Prime dismisses. “This was just proof.”

“Not just proof, I hope,” the Jedi mutters. “I’m.. I have to call the Council.”

Rex sees the panic in Anakin’s face, and is seized by the urge to do something, anything, to fix it.

“Obi-Wan, you can’t let them--”

“Nobody’s going to separate you,” the elder Jedi says. Obi-Wan, apparently. “And there’s no ‘let,’ Anakin, they outrank me. Significantly. Right now, I’m concerned about the implications of this war, of multiple of these cloned soldiers that have been indoctrinated to fight for and serve the Jedi having soulmates among us, especially given that I have no idea how recently our wartime protocols on such things were updated. There is an entire army that is supposedly in our name, ordered by a man ten years dead.”

“Count Dooku is involved,” Prime says, dark and satisfied and petty. “Calling himself Darth Tyrannus. The Kaminoans mostly believe he is an isolated and reclusive Jedi Master that serves as their contact when Sifo-Dyas is unavailable.”

The Jedi named Obi-Wan closes his eyes and breathes deeply, and then stands. “Right. That’s... well, alright, I absolutely have to call the Council now.”

Prime smiles, pulling Boba into his side. Rex finds himself tugged down to sit where Obi-Wan had been a few moments earlier.

“Why are you telling us all this?” the natborn woman says. “This Count sounds like he hired you, did he not?”

“The project predated his involvement, but yes, he’s my supervisor, so to speak.” Prime smiles that same dark smile, runs a hand over Boba’s head and pointedly doesn’t look at Obi-Wan. That smile is... unpleasant. Rex doesn’t want to look at it, and so he looks down to the faint glow at his wrist instead. “Did you know, they told me the clones would be sub-sentient and halfway to droids? Not really people? That my DNA was for the bodies, but the minds would be little more than lines of code? Do you know how much they hated that I saw the evidence of their lies written into my children’s skin?”

Rex jolts, head whipping about and hand pulling away from his soulmate, staring at Prime, his mouth agape in a way a soldier’s shouldn’t but--but he’s--

Rex has never, ever heard the Prime refer to any of them except Boba as his child. His copies, his echoes, his clones, but not his children.

A hand curls into his, and he looks down to find Anakin’s lacing their fingers together. He looks up into a hopeful, unsure smile.

Anakin tilts his head and leans in, lips to Rex’s ear, and says, “When I told Obi-Wan he was like a father to me, he didn’t even know how to respond. Just made a bad joke about it and then pretended it didn’t happen. Is this the same?”

“...close enough,” Rex breathes out, because now isn’t the time to explain just how different a clone’s existence is from what they’ve seen in the holos meant to prepare them for interacting with civilians. That ‘family’ here has always been brothers, your squad and any brother that chooses to take you on, or a brother you choose to nurture, that the Alphas raise them more than Prime or the trainers do, that the older squads are who they turn to because the adults won’t help, that they don’t have parents, and they are discouraged from thinking of children in their futures.

(Protecting intellectual property, one of the scientists had mused. They’d made it very, very difficult for any of the clones to impregnate a partner. Not impossible, because to make it impossible was itself impossible, but... nearly so.)

“There’s millions of us,” Rex says instead. “He doesn’t... he doesn’t usually acknowledge most of us as his.”

Anakin’s face twists, already angry, and the glare he aims at Prime is ghastly. Rex might already be a little in love, just for that. The way Anakin’s fingers squeeze around his is nice, too.

Prime does not notice.

“Can I see the contract you say you signed?” the natborn woman says, and Prime eyes her. He nods, at length, weighing her worth and finding she measures up to whatever it is that he’s decided is necessary.

“Boba, go pack like we’re going on a hunt,” Prime says, pulling out a personal datapad and only dropping his gaze to find the right file. “We’ll probably be leaving tonight.”

“Okay, buir,” Boba says, sliding off the couch. “Am I telling the Alphas the thing you said?”

“No, I’ll handle that myself. You just pack.” He stands, nods to the natborn woman, and moves around the table. “Senator, I’ll sit with you, if you don’t mind. I imagine you and Knight Kenobi are the best suited to get this problem fixed.”

“And me?” Anakin demands.

“You,” Prime says, with a just a hint of condescending drawl. “have just met your soulmate. I assumed you’d want some privacy to get to know each other.”

Anakin flushes, a little angry and a lot embarrassed. It’s frighteningly cute. “I--I mean--I don’t--”

“The clones are mentally the ages they look, but do remember they’ve had practically no time to gain any sort of experience,” Prime says, already ignoring them in favor of pointing something out on the datapad to the senator. “Take advantage of any of my kids, and I’ll be the one hunting you down. I’m told I’m rather good at it.”

Anakin’s face does some acrobatics. Rex would pay more attention, but he can feel himself turning just as red.

“Rex, you know where the private meeting room is,” Prime says, and waves a hand in the direction of the tiny, tiny office that’s by the door. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Be nice,” the Senator hisses, smacking Prime’s arm.

“He’s ten.”

“...still.”

Rex just stands and pulls Anakin away to the little room before things can get worse.

They’re delayed when Obi-Wan asks what they’re doing from the kitchen he’s been using to get a spot of privacy, but then Anakin says “we’re just going to talk, Master,” and they get an aggrieved sigh and a response of “the clothes stay on, padawan, and you’ll need to finish up whatever conversation you have soon, there’s work to do and being a padawan only excuses you from so much.”

Rex backs into the meeting room, yanks Anakin in, and then decides to throw caution to the wind and just press their lips together.

Oh.

Okay.

He’s kissing back.

Lack of caution: good.

The mark at his wrist thrums, warm and comfortable, and Rex pulls away. He stifles the noise he wants to make, and when Anakin whines, small and soft but clearly disappointed, Rex offers him a small grin he knows would get him called ‘shy’ by his asshole older brothers.

“We probably should actually get to know each other,” Rex says. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“I... yeah, I don’t know yours either, unless it’s Fett.”

“It’s not. I don’t have one.”

Anakin’s face does another one of those ‘I’m angry for you’ twists that Rex is quickly coming to recognize, and then he sighs and falls into one of the chairs. “Okay. So. I don’t know much about the soldier life. Tell me about it.”

And he does.

[soldmysoultootomeboys]

Hi! Can I request headcannons for the human brothers accidently summoning an angel mc instead of a demon and the angel mc insisting on sticking around and helping them?

The other brothers: :) Satan: >:)

This has been in the drafts for too long. I really love the absolute mood switch between Lucifers and Mammons. And just Satans in general ig.

Lucifer

After years of religious trauma at the hands of his father Lucifer finally thought he was free of any connection to the church. Summoning a flaming seraphim at 3 in the morning was not a pleasant way to find out that he was wrong.

As for you, being summoned for the first time in your long long life was an unwelcome surprise. You were a seraphim for heaven's sake. The cream of the crop, highest of the high, and that wasn’t pride speaking only facts. You were crucial to running the celestial realm.

But somehow you’re undeniably tied to his human. You could feel where his soul became intermeshed with your very essence. How wrong it felt to be tied to something so mortal, and delicate, and free.

Any attempts to leave would surely be met with disaster.

So you stay. Lucifer is cold. You can’t blame him. Being there reopens old wounds that he’d rather have remained closed. But just ignoring each other isn’t going to work.

He’s not interested in the celestial realm, and despises any blessing you try and give him, but a fresh cup of coffee during an all-nighter seems to make him brighter than any magic you could do and when you run your hands through his hair he looks at you with more fondness than you can comprehend.

You learn to be more human. He learns to let go of the past.

And one day you find that you don’t want to leave anymore.

For celestial sake that thought should as well be treason! But it’s true.

It’s a spring afternoon and Lucifer plays celestial lullabies on his piano and you want nothing more than for the beautiful night to come so you can sweep him in your arms and remind him how he glows.

You don’t know what is right and what is wrong anymore, but you know that this human is yours and you are his. To rip off your wings would be to find solace in his arms. But you can not give him that. This he knows.

So you promise to protect him, in words he can’t hear but he understands. The spread of your wings shield him from the world and you press blessings to his skin in the shape of the crescents in his back and your lips on his neck. If nothing else you’ll keep him safe. When the world seems too big and the stress of his life gets him down you’ll always be here for him to crawl back to. You can give him that much.

Mammon

That was it

You had to have been assigned the stupidest human in the world

When you were promoted to guardian angel you kinda thought it would be more ‘protecting orphans’ and ‘guiding lost puppies back home’ NOT watching a grown man spend his last paycheck on his eighth Nigerian prince scam

Seriously mammon? Did the prophetic dreams you sent mean nothing? The visions of the future he coincidentally had after hitting his head on a light post, only simple illusions? What more could you try beyond simply marching down their and clocking him on the head yourself?

...unless

Raphael would have your wings if you went to the human world. But that would be a lot less painful that having to watch whatever Mammon was going to do with all the rubber cement he just bought.

The next morning you decide to sneak down. The city was amazing, all colored light and fun machines that whizzed by you on the streets

But you had to stay focused

You were an angel on a mission

You made your way towards central park. Mammon went there every morning to swindle tourists out of their wallets. If you were fast you’d get there before the first patrol office started chasing him.

Spotting the albino you marched straight towards him, readied yourself, and smacked him over the head.

Maybe not very angel-like but it worked.

One introduction later and you're officially a guardian angel

Mammon’s actually pretty nice once you get to know him. Sure he may be a bit too obsessed with lining his pockets but for all his talk he never hesitates to try and help you out.

Consistent affection and care is good for him. He never really knows how to react when you wrap your wings around him but even with his tsundere objections it's obvious he’s pleased.

He’ll take whatever scraps of affection you’ll give him and practically beams at every little gesture you do, no matter how small or insignificant.

You do have to be careful though.

At his request you had attempted to bless him with a bit of luck. An easy enough spell for an angel like you (even if you were 90% sure he planned to go gambling after). Whatever scheming he’s doing immediately stops the moment you cup his face. He seems to freeze when you lean in, placing a gentle kiss on his cheek

You were about to congratulate yourself on a spell well done when you noticed the condition he was in. He was like a living statue, a statue with a very very red face

Before you can ask what was wrong he flails pushing you away and darting off to his room

Any attempts to speak to him the rest of the day were met with incoherent shouting.

It might be best to withhold any magic until you can figure out how humans work

Levi

Once again Levi’s dedication to anime gets him into trouble

It started with his most recent obsession, a new anime that follows a group of angels, produced by the famous company, Dove. The plot, the animation, the soundtrack, all of it was amazing so when they came out with a new limited edition item featuring the very symbol that the main character wore he just had to have it

The moment it came he was setting it up on its own altar, a handmade replica just like in the show only for- Oh no

Before his eyes burst a shining visage of light and then you

You blink in surprise, whether it's from taking a human form for the first time in decades or the strange new room you were in, only you know

The scene may be foreign but the guy quivering on the floor was not

BE NOT AFRAID

Your booming voice echoes around the room

For some reason the guy begins to freak out even more

Didn’t he see your halo? You even told him to not be afraid. Were humans really so strange? :(

Oh well. You hum making your aura as comforting as possible and slowly the guy calms down enough for you to coax him into a seat as you begin to explain.

Which might not have been the best move.

The moment it sunk in he was bombarding you with questions

Yes you were an angel, no you didn’t know what anime was, yes you had wings, no you didn’t have any secret ultimate moves...whatever those were

He ranted and raved over this and that and you let him. He seemed like he needed someone to talk to. It also let you piece together what had happened.

He seemed to be a natural sorcerer, and a powerful one at that if he could someone an angel with no training or even knowledge that he could do magic

Just a few minutes in his presence made his self loathing obvious. Mix in a bit of anxiety and envy and you essentially have Levi in a nutshell

So you decide to stay

What kind of angel would you be if you just left him here? Michael would understand.

Or he wouldn't, it didn’t really matter because you already made up your mind.

Living with Levi is an experience for both of you.

He introduces you to so many new things. He had little boxes that could control light and screens containing actual people to talk to. It was all quite fanciful

In return you act as his friend, encouraging him to go out with you and attending cons with him, even if you still weren't exactly sure what cosplaying is

Slowly he begins to open up for you

He’s still nervous to go out in public, and a complete introvert at heart.

But that was fine. You could both figure out this new world together, at your own pace

Satan

Definitely was not trying to summon a demon to lay havoc on his enemies

Nope, not him he says all while trying to casually kick away vials of mysterious fluids

...Right

You’ve been down to the human world enough to know a demon summoner when you see one

Or in this case a failed summoner

He has no excuse for why he called you and instead seems more insistent that you leave

As much as you you might like to return to the celestial realm, you cannot in good conscience leave a man that you know is going to try and raise hell on earth the moment your gone

So you stay, and it's a good thing you do

This man has anger issues like no other

You thought Raphael was bad this guy is like a demon himself

However he seems willing to try and make the best of what he considers a bad situation

He asks you a lot of questions on the celestial realm

For a guy who knows so much about the devildom he seems to really be lacking on any knowledge on the other celestial beings

He mostly asks you questions on the celestial war, which is a touchy topic at best and downright upsetting at worst

He’s very interested in your opinions as your point of view is very different from his own, what with being a different species and everything

You learn things too, mostly about humans and cats but you suppose its a fair trade

Because of this you become close friends

You really win him over when he finds out your calming aura naturally attracts the stray kittens Satan's been trying to pet for the last few months

It’s not uncommon to head out to late night coffee shops and discuss the merits of different aspects of your lives

But maybe you’ve gotten a bit to close when he starts asking you to revise his summoning notes

Asmo

Apparently a lifetime of partying has prepared Asmo for some very weird discoveries

When you're sent down to the human world you have one job, find and keep an eye on the potentially dangerous summoner who's been in contact with multiple high level demons in the past few days.

Instead you end up meeting Asmo

You were prepared for a fight, not to be tackled into a hug the moment you revealed yourself

Asmo on the other hand is squealing with excitement

Sweetie, he's been waiting for this moment! This is his first time meeting an angel after all

He immediately begins talking about everything he wants to do

You quickly find out that he hasn’t made any pacts...yet, if only because he “couldn’t bear to damage his skin with such an ugly mark”

...Well you suppose that's a reason to not sell your soul

Even thoughts he's aware of the three realms it doesn’t make him any less enamoured with you

He’s never met an angel, he’s quick to mention. He’d love to get to know you, if you get what he means ;)

Are all humans so upfront?

If you decline he still wants to see your true form, even after you explain that no, if you transform you will not just be a beautiful angel with wings but instead a glowing mass of eyes and feathers and angelic light that will probably end up blinding him

Blinded because of your beauty ;) ;) ;)

That said he’s easily satisfied when you just bring out your wings.

He loves fussing with them and decorates them with jewelry and roses whenever you leave them out

He even starts an angel trend on insta after posting a photo as if they were coming from his back instead

Claims your glowing aura is great for his skin

You’re not sure if that’s a pick up line or if he’s serious but he definitely basks in your presence

Loves when you talk about the celestial realm, somewhere he desperately wants to go

I mean it's the only place that's fit for a beauty like him right? But of course he can’t die yet, his fans would be sooo upset

You agree to bring him up there one day, even if that sounds a little morbid

Of course he asks you to become his guardian angel

That may not be your actual job but you can’t resist his puppy dog eyes

You and him go pretty much everywhere together, bar some more xxx rated sites

He introduces you to parties and bars, and while you don’t indulge it's enjoyable to see humans in their natural element. They’re so fun and free spirited just like Asmo

Maybe that's what attracted you to him in the first place

He loves life for what it is, something so admirably human

But you don’t slack off either. You take your role as Official Guardian Angel seriously. You guard his drinks when he goes to the bathroom, and hum celestial lullabies when he’s sad and escort him down dark alleys when walking home. He has nothing to fear with you around.

You’ve become very fond of this human. Perhaps you’ll stick around a bit longer than you planned

Beel

It’s rare to be assigned to a human so...mundane

But that’s exactly what Beel is. He goes to the gym in the mornings, works a nine to five, and comes back home to his dog

He even has a good relationship with this family, do you know how hard that is to find in this day and age???

The only thing even slightly abnormal about this guy is his appetite

He could put a gluttony demon to shame with the way he eats

But the point is you really can’t figure out why you’ve been assigned to him or how your supposed to guide him

Eat a little less? Stop stealing your brother's lunch?

It’s the first time in a long while you’ve been so stumped

So you do what any sane angel would, go down to the human world to meet him yourself

He’s a likeable guy and it’s easy to get close to him, more so do to your angelic status

Although it’s surprising how well he takes the whole angel revelation

To be honest your pretty sure he forgets most of the time

He tends to follow you around, especially at night when he insists on walking you to wherever you need to be. It’s sweet even though there's little that can really harm you in the human realm

You quickly realize that he’s the type to have nightmares, usually calling out for one of his brothers or his sister

It’s become habit to wake up and head to his room

Just being there seems to calm him down

The first time he wakes up when your doing this he ends up asking you to stay

Isn’t shy about sharing the bed either.

He’s easy going so goes along with whatever idea you have

Especially when he starts finding snacks in his bag, each one blessed for a good day or to stay full or whatever little thing you thought of that day

Belphegor

Humans can’t see angels. Not unless they want to be seen, you remind yourself for what must be the tenth time.

But you’re almost certain that guy is looking right at you.

Step to the left, his head follows

To the right, his eyes narrow looking at you like your some puzzle he just hasn’t figured out yet

…this was fine

You turn around pretending to just not see him in hope that he’ll get distracted by something else

...you glance back. Why was he still looking at you? What is with this creep?

Enough is enough.

You march over there ready to ask what his problem is. Instead he beats you to it.

Eh? You’re an angel right? He asks before you can say anything.

???? Shouldn’t he sound more shocked.

The guy just sleepily blinks. He doesn’t look like a sorcerer or a witch, in fact you can’t feel any magic from him at all.

You go to ask only to realize he’s sound asleep. It’s not like you could just leave him here. And at the same time a human who can just see angels is an oddity of itself.

You decide to hang around for a while. Belphegor doesn't mind. He only says something about it being "too troublesome to drive you off," and "you'd look like you'd just come back anyways"

Belphie sticks to you like glue, if glue was absolutely insufferable and seemed to enjoy annoying you at every possible moment

You would think this would be easy. I mean he sleeps all day and when he’s not sleeping he’s napping. Simple enough right? Wrong

When he was awake he was committed to pushing every single button you have

If it seemed like it might inconvenience or annoy you he was already doing it. Trying to smack your halo, pounce on you, or even jump off the roof just to see you scramble to catch him. He was like some terrible terrible cat

Luckily he was never energetic for long. When he wore himself out he’d retreat to the roof of his crappy one bedroom and wait for you to join him

He liked to look at the stars and he’d point them out to you. Orion, Polaris, Sirius, he would mutter, bringing you back to the days when Michael, who was once so fond of you, would sneak you down to the human world just to show you the stars and darkness the celestial realm could not offer

When he finally got tired you would take over reciting Celestial names and marking the sky with your finger just to show him where they’d be.

Those times were pleasant. Even if they were brief.

“I’m gonna jump.”

“Do it.”

“You’re an angel. Aren’t you supposed to stop me before I do something stupid?”

“You won't.”

“Aight. Bet.” Belphie pitches forward and you just manage to catch him by the leg before he falls off the roof.

Brat.

Always ruining a good moment.

You can’t even be mad. The moment you pull him up he’s already resting his fluffy head in your lap waiting for you to pet him.

He may be the most troublesome human in the entire three realms, but he’s your human